Tag: Palestine

The old guard: Joe Biden seems like a spring chicken compared to some of these guys

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When the U.S. president on Tuesday announced that he would seek reelection in 2024, attention quickly turned to his advanced age.
If elected, Joe Biden would be 82 on inauguration day in 2025, and 86 on leaving the White House in January 2029.
POLITICO took a look around the globe and back through history to meet some other elected world leaders who continued well into their octogenarian years, at a time when most people have settled for their dressing gown and slippers, some light gardening, and complaining about young people.
Here are seven of the oldest — and yes, they’re all men.
Paul Biya
President of Cameroon Paul Biya | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The world’s oldest serving leader, Cameroon’s president has been in power since 1982, winning his (latest) reelection at the age of 85 with a North Korea-esque 71.28 percent of the vote.
Spanning more than four decades and seven consecutive terms — in 2008, a constitutional reform lifted term limits — Biya’s largely undisputed reign has not come without controversy.
His opponents have regularly accused him of election fraud, claiming he successfully built a state apparatus designed to keep him in power.
Notorious for his lavish trips to a plush palace on the banks of Lake Geneva, which he’s visited more than 50 times, Biya keeps stretching the limits of retirement. Although he has not formally announced a bid for the next presidential elections in 2025, his party has called on him to run again in spite of his declining health.

Last February, celebrations were organized throughout the country for the president’s 90th birthday. According to the government, young people spontaneously came out on the streets to show their love for Biya.
Konrad Adenauer
Former Chancellor of West Germany Konrad Adenauer | Keystone/Getty Images
West Germany’s iconic first chancellor was elected for his inaugural term at the tender age of 73, but competed and won a third and final term at the age of 85.
In his 14-year chancellorship (1949-1963), Adenauer shaped Germany’s postwar years with a strong focus on integrating the young democracy into the West. Big milestones such as the integration of Germany into the European Economic Community and joining the NATO alliance just a few years after World War II happened under his leadership.
If his nickname “der Alte” (“the old man”) is one day bestowed upon Biden, the U.S. president would share it with a true friend of America.
Ali Khamenei
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | AFP via Getty Images
84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the last word on all strategic issues in Iran, and his rule has been marked by murderous brutality against opponents.
That violence has only escalated in recent years, with mass arrests and the imposition of the death penalty against those protesting his dictatorial rule. A mere middle-ranking cleric in the 1980s, few expected Khamenei to succeed Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, and he took the top job in hurried, constitutionally dubious circumstances in 1989.
A pipe-smoker and player of the tar, a traditional stringed instrument, he was president during the attritional Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and survived a bomb attack against him in 1981 that crippled his arm.
Thankfully for Khamenei, he doesn’t have the stress of facing elections to wear him down.
Robert Mugabe
President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe | Michael Nagle/Getty Images
You’ve heard the saying “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” — well, here’s a classic case study.
Robert Mugabe’s political career reached soaring heights before crashing to depressing lows, during his nearly four decades ruling over Zimbabwe. He came to power as a champion of the anti-colonial struggle, but his rule descended into authoritarianism — while he oversaw the collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy and society.
Though Mugabe’s final election win was marred by allegations of vote-rigging and intimidation, the longtime leader chalked up a thumping, landslide victory in 2013, aged 89.
He was finally, permanently, removed as leader well into his nineties, during a coup d’etat in 2017. He died two years later.
Giorgio Napolitano
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano | Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images
The former Italian president took his largely symbolic role to new heights when, aged 86, he successfully steered the country through a perilous transition of power in 2011 — closing that particular chapter of Silvio Berlusconi’s story.
Operating mostly behind the scenes, Napolitano saw five PMs come and go during his eight-and-a-half years in office, at a time when Italian politics were rife with instability (but hey, what’s new?).
Reelected against his will in 2013 at 87 — he had wanted to step down, but gave in after a visit from party leaders desperate to put Italy’s political landscape back on an even keel — Napolitano won the nickname “Re Giorgio” (King George) for his statesmanship.
When he resigned two years later, he said: “Here [in the presidential palace], it’s all very beautiful, but it’s a bit like jail. At home, I’ll be ok, I can go out for a walk.”
Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“It has been a very good day,” Javier Solana, the then European Union foreign policy chief, exclaimed when Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005.
As a tireless advocate of a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Abbas has enjoyed strong backing from the international community.
But three EU policy chiefs later and with lasting peace no closer, Abbas is still in power, despite most polls showing that Palestinians want him to step aside.
His solution for political survival: No presidential elections have been held in the Palestinian Territories since that historic ballot in 2005, with the Palestinian leadership blaming either Israel or the prospect of rising Hamas influence for the postponement of elections.
While Abbas seems to have found a solution for political survival, the physical survival of the 87-year-old chain smoker is now being called into question.
William Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone | Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Queen Victoria reportedly described Gladstone as a “half-mad firebrand” — and you’d have to be to chase a fourth term as prime minister aged 82.
At that point Gladstone had already outlived Britain’s life expectancy at the time by decades.
During his career, Gladstone expanded the vote for men — but failed to pass a system of home rule in Ireland, and he was slammed for alleged inaction to help British soldiers who were slaughtered in the Siege of Khartoum.
Gladstone was Britain’s oldest-ever prime minister when he eventually stepped down at 84 — and no one has beaten that record since. Similarly, no one has served more than his four (nonconsecutive) terms.
But should the Tories remain addicted to chaos, who’d bet against Boris Johnson starting his fifth stint as PM in 2049?
Ali Walker and Christian Oliver contributed reporting.

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#guard #Joe #Biden #spring #chicken #compared #guys
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 26, 2023
DOJ sues Norfolk Southern over East Palestine derailment

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The DOJ is seeking injunctive relief, cost recovery and civil penalties to “ensure it pays the full cost of the environmental cleanup,” according to the lawsuit.
“As a result of this incident, hazardous materials vented into the air and spilled onto the ground. These substances contaminated local waterways and flowed miles downstream,” the prosecutors wrote in the suit.
The derailment, involving a freight train traveling near a small town along the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, sent 38 cars off the track, spilling hazardous chemicals. Some of the tank cars had been compromised and required a controlled release of toxic vinyl chloride, which was burned off and forced the town’s evacuation.
Federal officials have insisted that the area and its water are safe now, but residents continue to complain of foul smells and worry about long-term health concerns, as well as depressed home values.
Earlier this month, Alan Shaw, the railroad’s CEO, appeared before Congress to apologize for the derailment and promise accountability, telling lawmakers that “we won’t be finished until we make it right.”
The company has come under intense scrutiny from the industry and lawmakers, who have pressed for more stringent safety precautions as they suspect an overheating wheel caused the derailment. Norfolk Southern has since announced a handful of new safety measures, as has the industry as a whole.
Lawmakers from both parties, including a heavy contingent from Ohio and Pennsylvania, are pressing forward with legislation intended to shore up rail safety, but so far have yet to gain broad traction.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
Swiss football fans raise flag of Palestine in match against Israeli team

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The Swedish fans raised the Palestinian flag during the football match that took place on Wednesday evening, between the Swedish team and the “Israeli team” in the Euro 2024 qualifiers.
The Swiss national team achieved its second victory in the qualifiers, and destroyed the goal of Israel three times, in the match that took place at the Geneva stadium, for the second round of the Group Nine matches of the Euro qualifiers.
Dozens of pictures and video clips of fans flying the Palestinian flag and some banners denouncing the occupation and the policy of apartheid on the stands of the Geneva stadium were spread on social media.
One of the videos showed dozens of fans raising Palestinian flags, while they interacted with the sound of music inside the stadium, as it seemed that it was raised in the face of the Israeli players.
PACBI account on Twitter, which belongs to the Palestinian campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel, which challenges Israeli apartheid, through academic, cultural and sports campaigns, published pictures of Swiss fans raising the Palestinian flag.
The account commented on the photos, saying, “Wonderful, during the Switzerland-Israel match in the Euro 2024 qualifiers, amazing support for the rights of the Palestinians, and against the Israeli apartheid regime.”
He added, “The campaign of solidarity with Palestine and the fight against racism, and the student and sports groups promised to raise the red card in the face of Israeli apartheid, and they did!”
Previous cases
European countries witnessed similar events when it came to the presence of an Israeli team on their soil, as dozens of people demonstrated around the Tallaght stadium in Dublin, the capital of Ireland, in September 2022, before the start of their national team’s match against “Israel” U-21.

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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 30, 2023
Palestine, Israel agree to de-escalate tension

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Cairo: The Palestinian National Authority and Israel reaffirmed their commitment to advancing security, stability and peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.
According to a communique released after a meeting between officials from the two sides, Egypt, Jordan and the US in Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh, the parties recognised the necessity of de-escalation on the ground, the prevention of further violence, as well as of pursuing confidence-building measures, and addressing outstanding issues through direct dialogue.
Israel and the Palestinian National Authority also reaffirmed their joint readiness and commitment to immediately work to end unilateral measures for 3-6 months, Xinhua news agency reported.
This includes an Israeli commitment to stop discussion of any new settlement units for four months and to stop authorization of any outposts for six months, according to the communique.
The two sides also affirmed their unwavering commitment to all previous agreements between them, particularly the legal right of the Palestinian National Authority to carry out the security responsibilities in Area (A) of the West Bank, in accordance with existing agreements, and will work together towards achieving this goal.
They also agreed to develop a mechanism to curb and counter violence, incitement, and inflammatory statements and actions.
The parties also reiterated the commitment of maintaining the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem, both in word and in practice, and reaffirmed the importance of the Hashemite Custodianship of Jordan.
They highlighted the need for both Israelis and Palestinians to take proactive measures to thwart any actions that would disrupt the sanctity of these sites during the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which coincides with Easter and Passover this year.

The parties reaffirmed the importance of maintaining the meetings under this format, noting they will convene again in Egypt.
The five-party meeting is a continuation of discussions that took place on February 26 in Jordan that worked on paving the road for resuming the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The tension between Israel and Palestinians has been rising since the start of this year. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that 89 Palestinians have been killed so far this year by Israeli soldiers, while official Israeli figures show that 14 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians.
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#Palestine #Israel #agree #deescalate #tension
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 20, 2023
Norfolk Southern CEO to apologize to Senate for East Palestine wreck

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The top Democrat and Republican on the committee — Chair Tom Carper (D-Del.) and ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) — said Wednesday that they want to hear more about what’s being done to help East Palestine. Carper said that he expects “straight answers” and “accountability.” And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he expects Shaw to “own up to his company’s spotty safety culture, particularly the increasingly apparent pattern of negligence”
Shaw also plans to urge an “industry-wide comprehensive approach, including railcar owners, car manufacturers, leasing companies, equipment makers, and the railroad companies” — suggesting regulators should cast a net much wider than his own company, or even his own industry. He’ll specifically call for changes to certain types of railcars, which the railroads do not directly own.
Shaw will also highlight Norfolk’s new focus on moving away from “efficiency” and profits, and toward something he will call “a more balanced approach to service, productivity, and growth”— which he called a “significant departure from the railroad industry’s recent past.” (These moves were first announced on a December earnings call, where he also assured investors that “other important financial measures, such as earnings per share, Return on Invested Capital, and revenue” would still be paramount.)
Capito made it clear that she’ll also focus on the adequacy of the Environmental Protection Agency’s response to the environmental disaster that the derailment caused. “Personally, I think the EPA failed on risk communication,” she said Wednesday. “There was confusion, there was delayed data and a sense that nobody really cared.”
The committee will also take testimony from Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown (D) and J.D. Vance (R) as well as Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, who are part of the group of lawmakers pressing forward with a bipartisan rail safety bill.
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#Norfolk #Southern #CEO #apologize #Senate #East #Palestine #wreck
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 9, 2023
Palestine condemns Israeli PM’s visit to West Bank settlement

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Ramallah: Palestine has condemned the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the Israeli settlement of Har Brakha near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry on Thursday said in a press statement that “the provocative visit of Netanyahu into the West Bank and the hostile statements and stances he made are rejected and condemned”.
A statement issued by Netanyahu’s office said that he and his wife Sara arrived in the settlement to condole the family of the two Israelis who were killed in a shooting attack carried out by Palestinians in the town of Hawara, south of Nablus on Sunday.
On Sunday, a Palestinian gunman opened fire at a vehicle of two Israelis in Hawara and killed them. In response, Israeli settlers attacked the town and burned dozens of cars and homes, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry added, “Netanyahu’s visit has no legitimate or legal characteristic, contrary to the rules of international law, UN resolutions, and the signed agreements.”
It said that “the visit reveals the true face of the Israeli government and its Prime Minister, who leads a government of settlements and settlers and sabotages the opportunity to revive the peace process”.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s visit comes amid tensions between the Palestinians and Israelis since January 1.
Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967 and established dozens of settlements on it. The settlement issue is one of the most prominent aspects of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and one of the main reasons for suspending the last direct peace negotiations between the two sides in 2014.

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#Palestine #condemns #Israeli #PMs #visit #West #Bank #settlement
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 3, 2023
Air around East Palestine still has high chemical levels — but risk isn’t ‘imminent,’ researchers say

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“This could be a concern if those levels were sustained over the long term,” said Weihsueh Chiu, a professor of veterinary physiology and pharmacology at Texas A&M University, which conducted the analysis of EPA data collected between Feb. 4 and this past Tuesday.
The findings, which the school posted on Twitter on Friday, come after weeks of rising anger among residents skeptical of the government’s assurances that they faced no health risks. Some local residents have complained about unusual ailments such as bloody noses and dizziness.
“It’s hard to trust anybody right now, for everything that we’ve been through,” resident Courtney Newman said at a town hall hosted by CNN on Wednesday evening. Newman said her son has had daily bloody noses and that she developed “skin issues” since returning home after evacuating because of the chemicals.
Chiu acknowledged that it’s difficult to determine from this initial data that the concentrations are responsible for any residents’ specific ailment, partly because EPA’s data averages levels over multiple hours, which may not reflect brief spikes.
An independent research team from Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon University — which is located in Pittsburgh, about an hour from the crash site — are collecting their own data with a mobile monitoring van that could reflect short-term bursts, though it will likely be a week or two before that analysis is complete.
EPA, which has had workers on the scene since hours after the Feb. 3 crash, reiterated in a statement that it has not detected levels dangerous in the short-term.
“EPA’s 24/7 air monitoring data continues to show that exposure levels of the 79 monitored chemicals are below levels of concern for adverse health impacts from short-term exposures,” the agency said. “The long-term risks referenced by this analysis assume a lifetime of exposure, which is constant exposure over approximately 70 years. EPA does not anticipate levels of these chemicals will stay high for anywhere near that long.”
Chiu agreed the levels should drop as the cleanup continues but said East Palestine residents should keep an eye on air quality data over the coming weeks to be sure.

“We weren’t trying to be alarmist,” he said. “It was just that nobody had done any interpretation of these levels, to our knowledge.”
The analysis found high levels of acrolein, which in liquid form is used as a component in the manufacturing of other chemicals or as a pesticide. It wasn’t carried in that form on the train, according to Norfolk Southern’s inventory, but can be formed as a byproduct of burning petrochemicals or via cigarettes or vaping.
“These levels are not because people are vaping right outside of the monitor,” Chiu said. “I’m not sure of the source but because it’s a combustion product, maybe it’s possibly from when they burned the material.”
Acrolein is an irritant in the respiratory tract, and research has found it can cause nasal lesions in animals after long-term exposure, Chiu said. It may also cause cancer with chronic exposure, but additional research is needed to determine that.
The median concentration of acrolein picked up around East Palestine was 0.14 micrograms per cubic meter of air. That comes with a hazard quotient — a measurement of chemicals’ non-cancer health risk — of 7, according to Texas A&M’s analysis; quotients over 1 are of concern. An EPA survey in 2014 found that Columbiana County, where East Palestine is located, had a quotient of 0.83, slightly below the average U.S. county quotient of 0.89, according to the Texas A&M researchers.
The highest sampling this month in East Palestine showed concentrations of 0.8 micrograms, with a quotient of 40.
EPA said the levels of acrolein being detected are within levels typically found in the air as defined by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Eight other chemicals showed higher-than-normal concentrations, though none surpassed a quotient of 1. However, chemicals can add up cumulatively to cause concern.
Vinyl chloride, a chemical that was burned off by Norfolk Southern days after the crash to prevent an explosion, is one of the substances showing higher than normal concentrations in some parts of East Palestine.
Some of the other chemicals may have come from the burning of crude oil or are being emitted by evaporating petrochemicals that soaked into the ground after the crash. Among them are benzene and naphthalene, both of which can cause cancer or — through chronic exposure — non-cancer ailments such as blood disorders, cataracts, respiratory issues and reproductive effects, according to EPA’s website.
The team from Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon is gathering independent data on about 80 chemicals in the air via its mobile monitoring van. Chiu said they plan to conduct a detailed analysis and release more information in a week or two.
The partnership was formed to study air pollution in the wake of Superfund disasters and is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, Chiu said.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 25, 2023
Seen in East Palestine: Buttigieg, Giuliani and a total political circus

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And people living in East Palestine said they were unsure about many things — whether the water was safe to drink, whether to remain in their homes, how to explain their headaches and bloody noses. And what to think about the VIPs making appearances in their hometown.
“They come for an hour or so, and they leave,” said Nora Wright, an assistant director for area nursing facilities, describing the “publicity stunts” by visiting politicians. “They don’t find out how we feel.”
“I don’t trust the government,” said Joe Botinovch, a self-employed flower shop owner who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 but is shopping for a different candidate now and likes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He, too, hasn’t enjoyed the sudden burst of attention from former presidents and presidential candidates.
“The only presidents I want to see are dead presidents in my wallet,” he said. “They’re using East Palestine like China and Russia and the U.S. are using Ukraine. It’s a proxy war.”
Buttigieg, who offered a public mea culpa for not speaking up about the derailment sooner, said he could tell how frustrated people here are.
“You can sense, when you talk to local leaders and local residents, that they’re getting pretty sick of the politics,” President Joe Biden’s Transportation secretary said in response to a question from POLITICO during a half-hour news conference near the accident site.
The politics showed no signs of leaving, though.
The Feb. 3 derailment by the 150-car Norfolk Southern train triggered a flaming wreck, spewed plumes of black smoke and left lingering worries about the safety of the town’s air, water and soil, along with fierce GOP criticism of how Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation has responded to the disaster. The Biden administration, in turn, has pointed to actions by the Trump-era DOT that weakened safety standards for trains carrying hazardous chemicals — although Buttigieg has expressed hope that Republicans will now embrace tougher regulations.

The unusually persistent glare of national attention has brought a trail of big-name and less-than-famous visitors to East Palestine.
Hannity’s producer, for example, was asking residents whether Buttigieg’s visit had made a difference — though none of them had witnessed it.
Giuliani, who was gathering social media content and audio for his Common Sense podcast, gaggled with local reporters, tooled around town with a crew of hangers-on and met with East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway. (A Giuliani groupie handed a local two $100 Sparkle grocery gift cards.)
Conaway, a registered Republican, also met with Buttigieg. He said he and the DOT leader bonded over their shared experience as Midwestern mayors, and had a “productive meeting.”
Outside a Rite Aid, a TikTok and YouTube user from Columbus who gave his name only as Xkitzo was broadcasting live from the parking lot, with his phone ensconced on a tripod.
The environmental activist Erin Brockovich arrives for a town hall Friday.
None of this has ended the tide of rumors and conspiracy theories surrounding the derailment, Conaway said in an interview.
“There’s continuing misinformation,” the mayor said, calling the municipal water safe to drink. He also dismissed the persistent, unfounded rumor that a controlled burn of the train’s toxic cargo of vinyl chloride — one that produced a large plume and forced residents to evacuate — was unnecessary and reckless. (One local TV report on the incident produced a headline that went viral: “We basically nuked a town with chemicals.”)
“There were only two options,” Conway told POLITICO of the train’s payload. “It was either it blew up or we blew it up.”
Mistrust was not hard to find, though.
Wright, the assistant nursing director and a mother of six grown children, said she doesn’t feel safe in her childhood home, which is within a mile of the derailment site, so she is letting the bank take it.
“If you walk into my house right now, you can smell it,” she said, describing the sulfur-like odor that lingers from the controlled burn. Her chest hurts. She has a sore throat. “I try to not spend too much time here.”
Wright also won’t drink the water here, even though Environmental Protection Agency leader Michael Regan and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine drank from the taps earlier this week to instill public confidence in the quality of EPA testing.
Neither will Courtney Miller, a mother of two, who lives with the train tracks in her backyard. She rose to viral fame after throwing a rock into a stream behind her house, turning up an oily glisten, and appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox.
On Thursday, she posed with Giuliani and recorded content for his podcast as he visited her home, decorated with “God, Guns, and Trump” and “Fuck Biden — Not My President” banners.
Signs posted through East Palestine’s downtown also capture the divided mood.
“Closed until further notice,” said a construction-paper sign on the door of a knickknack boutique called Mama’s Attic. It added that after the derailment, “my family is trying to pick up the pieces.”
“We are East Palestine,” reads another sign in town. “Get ready for the greatest comeback in American history.”
Buttigieg, who published a 224-page book called “Trust” three years ago, offered some explanations Thursday for why it’s so absent here.
One reason, he said, is the “national ideological layer” that some people have added to the derailment’s aftermath. “And there’s no question that there have been enormous amounts of both information and misinformation injected into this situation, none of which is to the benefit of the community.”
East Palestine is solidly Trump country — in 2020, the former president won 72 percent of the vote in surrounding Columbiana County. The only thing more ubiquitous here than Trump signs are the workers in bright yellow vests who dot the village.
But on this too, not everyone agrees.
Amy Britain, a Democrat and a retired physical therapy assistant, pulled through the Rite Aid parking lot to pick up some donated bottled water. She was happy about Buttigieg’s visit but rolled her eyes at Trump’s, and at the national coverage implying that the former president is the only politician welcome in the village where she grew up.
“We’re a microcosm of what’s going on in the entire country,” she said.

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#East #Palestine #Buttigieg #Giuliani #total #political #circus
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 24, 2023
‘Disappointment’ in Brussels after Israel expels MEP on official visit to Palestine

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EU leaders expressed surprise and regret Tuesday after the Israeli government barred a member of the European Parliament from entering the country on an official visit and deported her to Spain.
Ana Miranda, a Galician MEP in the Greens group, landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv Monday evening along with eight other lawmakers from two European Parliament delegations, one for Israel and one for Palestine. On the orders of the Israeli interior ministry, Miranda was put on a flight to Madrid.
“It’s a diplomatic conflict [and] it’s intolerable that Israel exerts control over members of a delegation that’s going to Palestine, not going to Israel,” Miranda told POLITICO.
A spokesperson for the Israeli Mission to the EU said: “The only reason that she was not allowed to enter is the issue that she tried to enter [Israel] illegally.” This referred to Miranda’s participation in a flotilla in 2015 that aimed to break the naval blockade of Gaza by Israel.
Israel has recently elected a far-right coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Miranda said that while being held at the airport for three hours, a female border control guard repeatedly told her to “shut up,” and that when Miranda explained that she was an MEP, the person replied: “What is the European Parliament? It’s nothing here.”
Miranda said she did not hide her participation in the flotilla when questioned.
The four-day visit by MEPs this week will include trips to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where the Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy. The delegation was denied access to Gaza, Miranda said.

Parliament President Roberta Metsola described her “disappointment” on Twitter, saying she will contact the Israeli authorities to demand answers, and also convene the leaders of political groups to discuss the next steps.
Relations between Jerusalem and the Parliament have been cordial as of late, with the institution having hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog to mark Holocaust Memorial Day in January. Metsola, a Maltese MEP from the center-right European People’s Party, visited Israel in May last year.
Miranda was given the go-ahead to enter Israel, according to emails dated February 2 and 14 between the EU’s External Action Service in Israel and the country’s foreign affairs ministry, seen in full by POLITICO. The emails stated that Manu Pineda, a Spanish far-left MEP who chairs the Palestine delegation, was barred entry, but made no mention of banning Miranda from entering. Miranda said it was a “lie” that she was still banned from entering Israel. “Otherwise they would not have authorized me [to travel],” she wrote in a follow-up message.
The spokesperson for the Israeli Mission to the EU said Pineda — who did not travel to Israel with the rest of his delegation — supports Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization in the EU. The EU’s General Court has ruled that Hamas should be removed from this list, a decision that is currently suspended pending an appeal by the Council.
Pineda told POLITICO in a statement: “I am not a Hamas supporter, no matter how much the Israeli regime insists.”
He continued: “The Israeli regime can continue to insist on its alibi of photos and Hamas. But in reality what they are doing today is preventing my work as chair of the Delegation for relations with Palestine and preventing the proper functioning of this delegation, because of my past as a human rights activist in Gaza.
“Israel has a very serious human rights problem and does not want anyone to witness the killings, forced displacements, illegal settlements and systematic arrests,” he added.
Pineda’s Left group has demanded that the Parliament take “reciprocal measures” for Israel. He said this means that no Israeli politician or diplomat should be allowed entry.
“Respect for all elected MEPs and the European Parliament is essential for good EU-Israel relations,” said Nabila Massrali, the European Commission’s spokesperson for foreign affairs. “This decision is deeply disappointing, it is also surprising.”
Gregorio Sorgi contributed reporting.

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#Disappointment #Brussels #Israel #expels #MEP #official #visit #Palestine
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 21, 2023
Pompeo says Israel has biblical claim to Palestine and is ‘not an occupying nation’

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Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, has defended Israel’s decades-long control of the Palestinian territories by claiming that the Jewish state has a biblical claim to the land and is therefore not occupying it.
Pompeo told the One Decision podcast that his religious beliefs, US strategic interests and his view of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as a “known terrorist” underpinned his support as the Trump administration’s top diplomat for the shift in US policy away from mediating a two-state solution and toward more openly siding with Israel.
“[Israel] is not an occupying nation. As an evangelical Christian, I am convinced by my reading of the Bible that 3,000 years on now, in spite of the denial of so many, [this land] is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people,” he said.
Pompeo, who referred to the occupied West Bank by its Israeli name of Judea and Samaria, declined to support a two-state solution of an independent Palestine alongside Israel – an increasingly diminishing prospect after years of failed negotiations and the rise to power of politicians in Israel who advocate annexing the occupied territories.
“I’m for an outcome that guarantees Israeli security and makes the lives better for everyone in the region,” he said.
Pompeo, who once suggested that God sent Trump to save Israel, was speaking ahead of publication of a book, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, that has fuelled speculation he is laying the groundwork for a presidential run.
As secretary of state he reversed a number of longstanding US policies, including overturning legal advice from 1978 that declared Israel’s settlements in the West Bank “inconsistent with international law”. Most western governments, such as the UK, say the settlements and Israel’s annexation of occupied East Jerusalem are a breach of the Geneva conventions and are therefore illegal.
Pompeo was Trump’s CIA director before his appointment as secretary of state in 2018. He played an instrumental role in an administration that recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US embassy to that city from Tel Aviv. The move was widely criticised, including by Washington’s allies, as pre-empting a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Pompeo said it is in the US’s interests to back Israel whatever its policies, and he blamed the Palestinians for the failure of peace negotiations.
“What’s in America’s best interest? Is it to sit and wait for Abu Mazen [Abbas], a known terrorist who’s killed lots and lots of people, including Americans … to draw a line on a map? That’s what the state department would do,” he said.
“The previous secretary of state ran back and forth from Tel Aviv to Ramallah and tried to draw lines on a map. We said: ‘That’s not in America’s best interest. Let’s go create peace,’ and we did.”
Pompeo was part of the Trump administration team that negotiated the Abraham accords normalisation agreements between Israel and several formerly hostile countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan. At the time he said the accords were part of the administration’s efforts to ensure that “that this Jewish state remains”.
“I am confident that the Lord is at work here,” he said.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 16, 2023