Day: January 21, 2010

Palestinian “refugees” can’t settle in Lebanon — one more example of Arab irresponsibility and bigotry

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A blog called Elder of Ziyon reports:

The US envoy to the Middle East just doomed any remote chance there might have ever been for a peaceful two-state solution.

Palestine Press Agency quotes Mitchell as having told his Lebanese hosts that the US “does not support the resettlement of the Palestinians” in Lebanon. The US Embassy website in Lebanon said “As the Special Envoy, Mitchell confirmed to Prime Minister Hariri in their meeting last evening the U.S. will not support the forced naturalization of Palestinians in Lebanon.”

Then follows a clear summary of the Palestinian problem, with emphasis on something we haven’t talked about much. Some highlights:

. . . the definition of “Palestinian refugee” is unique among all world refugees. The UNRWA created an entirely news class of refugees where the descendants of Palestinian Arab refugees are considered refugees themselves. Using this bizarre definition, the number of Palestinian Arab “refugees” is fated to grow, forever. It is simply impossible to imagine that they will all ever “return” to “Palestine.” They are now at about 10,000,000 and counting.

As far back as the 1950s, the world realized that there was no solution for the (then) hundreds of thousands of refugees that did not include their eventual resettlement in Arab countries. Yet the Arab League, in an astonishing display of bigotry against their fellow Arabs that persists to this day, ruled that no Palestinian Arabs can become naturalized citizens of Arab countries – while all other Arabs can.

This is, in sum, the major reason why millions of Arabs are stateless today. Even if you want to blame Israel for expelling every one of the 600,000 Arabs in 1948 (which is clearly not true,) the only people responsible for their continued suffering over the past 61 years are the Arab leaders who pretend to support them while refusing to take in their “brethren” and give them full rights.

The UN’s agency, UNRWA has been complicit in this dereliction of duty by the Arab leaders, never even suggesting that the Palestinians could settle anywhere but Israel, as far as I know. The blogger goes on to point out that any time Palestinians have had the opportunity to settle in an Arab country, they have jumped at the chance.

So today we have millions of people, falsely labeled as “refugees,” who never stepped foot in British Mandate Palestine and who, if they were any other group of people, would have become citizens of the nations they were born in. The reason is purely because of Arab bigotry and intransigence.

There is no realistic solution to the “Palestinian” problem as long as this naked bigotry is allowed to continue. Millions of Palestinian Arabs are not going to stream into a nation of “Palestine.” The only solution must include treating this population exactly the same way as other refugee populations are treated.

The US should be in the forefront of insisting that the “moderate” Arab nations and allies step up and take their share of responsibility for decades of Palestinian Arab suffering.

Instead, George Mitchell (who has Lebanese ancestry) has now officially stated that the US supports this institutionalized discrimination by Arab leaders. A golden opportunity to point out embedded Arab bigotry and to publicize and shame Arabs into taking responsibility for their treatment of Palestinian Arabs is now lost.

He points out:

 The losers, as always, are the actual Arabs of Palestinian Arab ancestry who are kept in limbo by the very people who are claiming to care the most about them.

Right you are, Elder. But there are other losers. Those are the Jews, both in Israel and worldwide. Thanks to a propaganda blitz that’s gone on for decades, this pitiful state of the Palestinians is blamed on Israel in the most hateful, disgusting and dishonest way. So successful has this been that the worldwide hatred for Israel is now moving into hatred for Jews in general, and in some ostensibly civilized countries in Europe Jews are not safe.

Coincidentally, just before I read Elder of Ziyon’s post a friend sent me this video from Just Journalism, a new British website devoted to fighting the new anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli press coverage that dominates the UK media and helps spread the virus in Britain.

Miami Herald: Maybe as many as 200,000 Haitians illegally in US will apply for TPS

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you about the Obama Administration’s decision to grant illegal alien Haitians already in the US before the earthquake Temporary Protected Status here.

Now comes word, oops! that the number is far greater than originally thought. 

The Obama administration is preparing to handle applications from as many as 200,000 undocumented Haitian immigrants who want to live and work legally in the United States under a new immigration program unveiled last week in the aftermath of Haiti’s destructive earthquake.

The federal government will begin accepting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) applications on Thursday, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas, whose agency will process the paperwork.

Mayorkas was in Miami Wednesday to meet with local immigrant aid groups to South Florida to talk about the daunting task of handling the likely blizzard of applications from Haitians seeking the opportunity to remain in the United States.

[….]　

The TPS designation is reserved for selected undocumented migrants from countries disrupted by natural disasters, armed conflicts or other emergencies.

Those Haitians approved will be allowed to stay in the United States for 18 months and be issued work permits to find jobs.

The Liberian example*:   This 18 months business is a joke.  We granted Liberians TPS years ago and halted it in 2006.  When the deadline approached this year to deport those who had TPS status, heavy lobbying by the likes of Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island (here) and others persuaded the Obama Administration to extend their deadline to be deported, here.   What do you think the chances are that once established in jobs, buying homes and sending kids to school they will ever be returned to Liberia (or Haiti)?

What a surprise, earlier in the week immigrant advocacy groups had the number of Haitians in the US wrong.

Local immigrant advocacy groups say that between 34,000 and 68,000 potential TPS applicants may be in South Florida and almost 100,000 statewide. They had earlier pegged the number of Haitians eligible for TPS at 30,000 nationwide.

So, let’s see!  We are going to give TPS status to 200,000 Haitians so they can compete with Americans for scarce jobs then send a large portion of the money they make back to Haiti.  And, if they don’t find jobs, will they send their welfare checks back to Haiti?

By obtaining work permits with the possibility of getting a job, tens of thousands of undocumented Haitian immigrants in the United States are likely to send tens of millions of dollars to homeland relatives.

The latest estimate shows that Haitian immigrants in the United States send more than $1 billion in remittances to Haiti, according to the Inter-American Development Bank, which closely tracks remittances to the region.

The money sent from Haitians living in the United States and other foreign countries represents more than one-third of Haiti’s gross national product.

There is a fee schedule for TPS applications, but no surprise the feds are considering waiving it.

* Update:  A reader sent me this good article by Roy Beck at NumbersUSA from last March about the Obama extension of TPS for Liberians.

Geert Wilders goes on trial in the Netherlands for insulting Islam

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The official charge is “inciting hatred and discrimination toward Islam.” Wilders, member of the Dutch legislature, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, and the most popular politician in the Netherlands, is an outspoken critic of Islam and Islamic terrorism. His short documentary film, Fitna, shows images of horrors perpetrated by Muslims, and shocked the delicate sensibilities of some of his countrymen, who prefer to ignore these things in the interest of social harmony, or their careers, or something. 

FrontPage Magazine has been covering Wilders very well for a long time. Today they print his speech to the court on the first day of his trial. (Other FrontPage links are here, though this might not be a complete list because of a very bad redesign of the website.)  We have covered Wilders here at RRW, also, and our links are here.  Here is Wilders’s inspiring speech:

Mister Speaker, judges of the court,

I would like to make use of my right to speak for a few minutes.

Freedom is the most precious of all our attainments and the most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to it and given their lives for it. Our freedom in this country is the outcome of centuries. It is the consequence of a history that knows no equal and has brought us to where we are now.

I believe with all my heart and soul that the freedom in the Netherlands is threatened. That what our heritage is, what generations could only dream about, that this freedom is no longer a given, no longer self-evident.

I devote my life to the defence of our freedom. I know what the risks are and I pay a price for it every day. I do not complain about it; it is my own decision. I see that as my duty and it is why I am standing here.

I know that the words I use are sometimes harsh, but they are never rash. It is not my intention to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction, but I am not any more out to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims. I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.

Future generations will wonder to themselves how we in 2010, in this place, in this room, earned our most precious attainment. Whether there is freedom in this debate for both parties and thus also for the critics of Islam, or that only one side of the discussion may be heard in the Netherlands? Whether freedom of speech in the Netherlands applies to everyone or only to a few? The answer to this is at once the answer to the question whether freedom still has a home in this country.

Freedom was never the property of a small group, but was always the heritage of us all. We are all blessed by it.

Lady Justice wears a blindfold, but she has splendid hearing. I hope that she hears the following sentences, loud and clear:

It is not only a right, but also the duty of free people to speak against every ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I hope that the freedom of speech shall triumph in this trial.

In conclusion, Mister Speaker, judges of the court.

This trial is obviously about the freedom of speech. But this trial is also about the process of establishing the truth. Are the statements that I have made and the comparisons that I have taken, as cited in the summons, true? If something is true then can it still be punishable? This is why I urge you to not only submit to my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of freedom of speech. But I ask you explicitly to honour my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of Islam. I refer not only to Mister Jansen and Mister Admiraal, but also to the witness/experts from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Without these witnesses, I cannot defend myself properly and, in my opinion, this would not be an fair trial.

I am posting this speech because the freedom to speak openly about Islam is threatened all around the world, including within our own country. Geert Wilders is standing up for all of us, and we need to be aware of his situation.  If you doubt that our freedom is at risk, read what the administration of Temple University did to try to block his speech there, and how he was treated.

His website is here; there are links to articles and other material about him and his case, and there is a link to donate. I encourage you to do so.

Dominican Priest: We can’t handle 100,000 Haitian refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I was hoping to write about something other than Haiti this morning, but it seems there is no escaping the Haitian refugee issue—it is everywhere in every alert on refugees.   This is a short article that says that the International Organization for Migration (IOM), by the way largely funded by US taxpayers, wants to set up a refugee camp in the Dominican Republic.   A priest implied it would drag down the Dominican Republic and commenters mostly blasted him.

One commenter (one of those leftist faux humanitarians) wants to poke his eyes out for giving a rational suggestion.   Don’t you just love it when those people who demand everyone be kind and generous are the meanest SOB’s themselves.   But, I digress, here is the article from Dominican Today about the Priest and what he said:

SANTO DOMINGO. – The charity organization Dominican Border Solidarity, characterized for the defense of human rights of Haitians immigrants in the Dominican Republic, opposes the International Organization for Migrations’ (OIM)[IOM] alleged attempt to build in this country a refugee camp to house 100,000 victims of Haiti’s quake.

The Jesuit priest Regino Martinez, Solidarity coordinator, said there are enough places in Haiti to shelter people in the camp which the IMO [IOM] proposes.

He said the Dominican Government has supported the Haitian people with solidarity after the catastrophe and the help for Haitians to respond to their calamity, but in their own country, is the effort which should prevail for now.

All of the commenters however did not criticize the Dominican.   A commenter named NegroDeLaBachata from Stuttgart, Germany had a whole series of good suggestions and comments, including this one:

As far as camps go, set them up in Haiti. There’s sufficient room for this. Haiti has 10 states, nearly 11,000 sq. miles. There’s plenty of room to set up tent cities where the international community can care for the survivors of the quake, evacuate the capital if deemed necessary, and organize the rebuilding of the Haitian capital. There is absolutely no reason that Haitians need to evacuate Haiti.

Makes sense to me!

Dengue fever on the rise

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Let me be clear, by posting this story I am not saying anything about refugees bringing Dengue fever.  I simply thought the article was interesting to note and want to keep it in our files (our health issues category).  It does however affect Haiti and those traveling to and from the earthquake devastated country.

From Sphere:

Last year, the H1N1 outbreak killed at least 12,500 people worldwide, and billions of dollars were spent on vaccine development and the rush to stymie the virus’ spread. At the same time, another global health crisis was expanding with staggering speed but much less attention.

Dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness once contained to Central America and Southeast Asia, now threatens 2.5 billion people in more than 100 countries. The affected areas include wide swaths of the United State and Haiti, where the illness was already endemic before last week’s earthquake.

“The bottom line is that this is a neglected disease,” said Dr. Raman Velayudhan, a dengue specialist with the World Health Organization. “No attention means very little donation money, so countries are fending for themselves.”

Dengue (pronounced “DENG-ee”) was identified and named in the late 18th century. The first modern pandemic was reported in Southeast Asia during the 1950s. Since then, outbreaks have become common in tropical regions. About 40 million cases are diagnosed each year, with 22,000 deaths.

Read it all.