Donate Us

Help us keep this free site alive with a small contribution from you. Select an amount below.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

This Jodi Rudoren article in the New York Times is far from perfect, but it echoes things I wrote recently:

Mayor Nir Barkat proudly trumpets the investments he has made over the past five years in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem: about $141 million for roads and infrastructure, $113 million to build 500 classrooms, more than $1 million for a single soccer field in Beit Safafa.

Mr. Barkat, a high-tech multimillionaire who is favored in Tuesday's municipal elections here, did not, however, highlight these accomplishments in the actual Arab neighborhoods they benefit — because he, like his challenger, did not campaign at all in those places.

"You don't focus on the ones that tell you they don't intend to vote," Mr. Barkat said with a shrug last week.

....As part of a broader "anti-normalization" campaign, the Palestinian leadership has for decades warned residents against casting ballots. So a vast majority do not vote, despite the possibility that their large numbers could win a solid blocking minority on the 31-member City Council, if not a winning coalition with sympathetic Israelis.

"The whole thing is not really rational," said Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al Quds University, whose family has 1,300-year roots in Jerusalem. "It's not by reason that people are guided; it's by sentiments and feelings and fears and histories."

Mr. Nusseibeh once advocated Palestinian voting, backing an Arab newspaper publisher who ran for mayor in 1987 but withdrew after his cars were burned and his home vandalized. Yet Mr. Nusseibeh himself has never voted here, either. And he said that the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, with the fate of Jerusalem among the contentious questions on the agenda, make people even more wary that voting could be seen as legitimizing Israel's control of the city.
As I noted, at the same time the PLO threatens those who vote, it also complains that Jerusalem Arabs are disenfranchised.

In other words, the PLO is looking to score propaganda points far more than it cares about the welfare of its citizens.

According to early numbers, only about 1% of the Arab residents of Jerusalem across the Green Line voted.

And guess who is celebrating? The Palestinian Authority!

According to Al Watan (Saudi Arabia,) the low turnout was welcomed by the PA, calling it a "referendum."

If doing nothing except for complaining when things don't go your way is a referendum, then the PA has the market cornered.




--
Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 10/22/2013 09:09:00 PM

0 comments:

Post a Comment

EoZTV Podcast

Powered by Blogger.

follow me

search eoz

Recent posts from other blogs

subscribe via email

comments

Contact

translate

E-Book

source materials

reference sites

multimedia

source materials for Jewish learning

great places to give money

media watch

humor

.

Source materials

Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts Ever

follow me

Followers


pages

Random Posts

Pages - Menu

Elder of Ziyon - Ų­Ł€ŁƒŁ€ŁŠŁ€Ł… ŲµŁ€Ł‡Ł€ŁŠŁ€ŁˆŁ†

Donate!

Tweets

Compliments

Monthly subscription:
Subscription options

One time donation:

Interesting Blogs

Categories

Best posts of 2016

Blog Archive

compliments

Algemeiner: "Fiercely intelligent and erudite"

Omri: "Elder is one of the best established and most respected members of the jblogosphere..."
Atheist Jew:"Elder of Ziyon probably had the greatest impression on me..."
Soccer Dad: "He undertakes the important task of making sure that his readers learn from history."
AbbaGav: "A truly exceptional blog..."
Judeopundit: "[A] venerable blog-pioneer and beloved patriarchal figure...his blog is indispensable."
Oleh Musings: "The most comprehensive Zionist blog I have seen."
Carl in Jerusalem: "...probably the most under-recognized blog in the JBlogsphere as far as I am concerned."
Aussie Dave: "King of the auto-translation."
The Israel Situation:The Elder manages to write so many great, investigative posts that I am often looking to him for important news on the PalArab (his term for Palestinian Arab) side of things."
Tikun Olam: "Either you are carelessly ignorant or a willful liar and distorter of the truth. Either way, it makes you one mean SOB."
Mondoweiss commenter: "For virulent pro-Zionism (and plain straightforward lies of course) there is nothing much to beat it."
Didi Remez: "Leading wingnut"