EU Pushes for Refugee Camps Outside Europe to Curb Migrant Influx

FILE PHOTO © Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters

EU ministers are pushing forward with plans to fund refugee camps outside the bloc to save migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean and bringing into Europe only those “who require protection.”

The long-debated topic was on the table at Thursday’s meeting between EU interior ministers in the Maltese capital, Valletta. Officials focused on the problem of refugees attempting to reach the Union via the Mediterranean and smugglers profiting from sending migrants on a dangerous naval journey.

“The idea is to send them to a safe place, without bringing them into Europe," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. To achieve that, the EU is considering funding special camps in Africa where migrants will be screened by rights organizations and the UN.

According to the German minister, "the people taken by the smugglers need to be saved and brought to a safe place.” He stressed, however, that from there “only those who require protection" would be forwarded to Europe.

The screening camps might be located in Libya or some of its neighboring countries and operated under the auspices of UN refugee agency UNHCR, or the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Reuters writes.

There's a 'safe place' anywhere in Libya?

Another key point of the gathering on Thursday were EU asylum laws which, according to the so-called Dublin agreements, state that asylum-seekers must make their application in the EU country that they entered first. According to de Maiziere, the bloc will have to apply “additional rules” if the influx reaches a “massive” level. 

At its peak in 2015, the EU faced over 1 million refugees fleeing unrest in the Middle East and Africa, most of them from Syria and Afghanistan.

The EU managed to slash the numbers after striking a deal with Ankara last year, which envisioned Turkey preventing migrants from reaching Europe through its territory. The European Union also set up a naval mission in the Mediterranean to deal with the refugee problem.

Yet, the number of asylum seekers fleeing their war-torn or impoverished home countries through the Mediterranean still remained high, with hundreds of thousands of arrivals. Libya and Algeria became major exit points, with people mainly trying to reach Italy or Greece. 

Last year was the deadliest in terms of casualties among refugees who opted for the risky naval journey, with over 5,000 people killed or missing. 

In the first three weeks of this year, the UNCHR says it counted at least 230 people dead or missing. 

The plans to establish outpost camps have been criticized by some MEPs.

"Even more refugees will be locked up in North Africa under high risk of torture, rape and other forms of ill treatment," German MEP Cornelia Ernst, said as quoted by Reuters.

Libya - mulled as one of the places for the refugee camps – has been plagued by years of violence between rival factions, which followed the NATO-backed removal of the country’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011.

UN A Big Part of Palestinian Propaganda Machine

The UN has long been the leader in facilitating Palestinian propaganda.

Its dominance by Muslims and other Antisemitic countries has made

the little country of Israel the centre of UN attention

in spite of extraordinary atrocities happening

in many other countries. 

Palestinians are portrayed as living in abject poverty and hopelessness when in fact they are well-educated, and have many opportunities that most Palestinians living elsewhere in the middle east do not have. 

Check out this home of a Palestinian businessman:

I mean, good grief, he must have put half of the West Bank to work building that palace. And where did he get the money? Israel is strangling the Palestinian economy, apparently, but it seems this guy doesn't know it.

http://northwoodsministries.blogspot.ca/2016/04/luxury-not-poverty-in-palestinian.html

Yes, there are slums in Palestine and 70% of the people live in them. This has less to do with Israeli economic strangulation than with UNRWA and the PLO doing their best to keep those people living in slums. The billions of dollars spent by UNRWA could have lifted those people out their slums if they were interested in helping Palestinians rather than garnering sympathy for them and making Jews look bad.

Nearly one-third of the registered Palestine refugees, more than 1.5 million individuals, live in 58 recognized Palestine refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

In the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, those 'refugee camps' are apartment buildings, almost all of which have running water/sewer and electricity. Slums they are, but 'camps' they are not. For refugee 'camps' you need to go to other Arab states where the quality of life and the opportunity for education, medical care and employment is considerably diminished, if not non-existent.

READ: The Politics of Suffering
Syria's Palestinian Refugee Camps

Nell Gabiam

Gabiam’s analysis captures two forces in tension within the camps: politics of suffering that serves to keep alive the discourse around the Palestinian right of return; and politics of citizenship expressed through development projects that seek to close the divide between the camp and the city. Gabiam offers compelling insights into the plight of Palestinians before and during the Syrian war, which has led to devastation in the camps and massive displacement of their populations.

Have you heard about the massive suffering of Palestinians in Syria? I haven't, and I keep my ear pretty close to the Middle East ground. No UN resolutions about their suffering! You only hear how bad those living in the West Bank and Gaza have it.

The long-suffering people of Gaza

http://northwoodsministries.blogspot.ca/2015/08/report-shows-5-star-gaza-for.html

According to the 2012 Happy Planet Index – a survey conducted by the New Economics Forum to measure happiness around the world – the Palestinian Authority was the third happiest Arab country and the 30th happiest in the world, making the PA happier than many developed countries like the US, UK, Sweden, Australia and Canada.

Algeria – 52.2
Jordan – 51.7

Palestinian Authority – 51.2

Crazy, huh? Maybe we should all move to Gaza.

UN rights envoy slams Israel for imposing ‘epic’ poverty on Palestinians

© Mohamad Torokman / Reuters

The UN human rights rapporteur has accused Israel of denying Palestine’s right to development thus causing rampant poverty, “epic" unemployment and economic stagnation, while illegal settlement activity is leaving hundreds of Palestinians homeless.

Over 1,100 people have been left homeless so far this year in Area C of the West Bank, as Israel demolished some 780 Palestinian homes, according to Haaretz. Area C is fully administered by Israel and comprises of some 60 percent of the total territory in the West Bank. It is the area where the Jewish settlements – illegal under international law – are located.

So far this year, Israel has destroyed 780 homes there, compared to 453 demolitions that were conducted in 2015. Last year's demolitions left some 580 Palestinians homeless, while this year 1,129 people were left without a roof over their heads.

In addition, the publication noted that further 125 Palestinian homes were also demolished in East Jerusalem since the start of the year. Last year's figures stood at 78 home demolitions. As a result, 164 Palestinians were left homeless this year in East Jerusalem. In 2015, that figure stood at 108 people.

In East Jerusalem, this, I believe, is a policy of retribution against families whose members attack or kill Jews just because they are Jews. In other words, they are terrorists and murderers, yet the UN and the news media would make them into victims. How pathetic! How outright evil!

Overall, more half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority considers West Bank to be a part of a future independent Palestinians state, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Illegal occupation remains one of the main stumbling blocks on the way to achieve a two-state solution with Israel.

Declared illegal by the UN and many liberal, antisemitic states who criticized Israel for winning the 6-day war in 1967, but have never criticized Syria, Jordan or Egypt for attacking Israel in the first place. Nor have they criticized these states or others, like Iran, which have frequently threatened to annihilate Israel at first opportunity. Is this not hypocrisy in the extreme?

The biggest stumbling block to a two-state solution is the fact that Palestinians do not want a two-state solution. They want Israel gone - period. Nothing less will satisfy them, so why pretend that there is any possibility of a two-state solution. Palestinians are teaching their children from kindergarten to hate Jews and to aspire to be a Jew-killer. Does that sound like a people who want peace?

A day earlier, Haaretz reported that as part of the Israeli government’s ‘carrot and stick’ policy, the country's security cabinet reportedly approved a series of Palestinian building plans in Area C.

The paper says the meeting took place on October 5, and was held in secret so as not to provoke the ultra-nationalist Israelis. The ‘carrot and stick’ approach, earlier voiced by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, is a plan devised to reward Palestinians who support coexistence with the Jewish state while at the same time punishing those who support terrorism.

The plans reportedly seek to expand Palestinian villages in the West Bank and the Palestinian city of Qalqilya. In addition, Israel agreed to expand an economic corridor between Jericho and Jordan and the construction of an industrial area near Nablus. Construction of a hospital in Beit Sahour has also allegedly been authorized.

Israeli activities in the occupied territories were discussed in a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights, who accused Israel of denying Palestinian development.

Wait a minute! Read the last two paragraphs above, again. Do you see any conflict in those two statements? Apparently, the RT writer of this article doesn't. Is that what bigotry is?

“Poverty is rising. Unemployment is rising to epic levels. Food insecurity is becoming more acute. The Palestinian economy is becoming more stifled and less viable under the occupation,” Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said delivering his report to the UN General Assembly in New York.

Lynk said that Gaza suffers from a staggering 42 percent unemployment rate. Unemployment is as high as 58 percent among the youth population. Overall the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory has a 27 percent unemployment rate compared to only to 12 percent in 1999.

“The deepening of the occupation, the constriction of basic human rights and the utter absence of a political horizon leading to self-determination for the Palestinians have reinforced an atmosphere of despair and hopelessness,” Lynk said.

In Israel, human rights are constricted in direct proportion to the degree of distrust Israel has toward Palestinians. As long as they are determined to destroy Jews and run them out of the Middle East, their rights will have to be restricted. That they are only 'restricted' and not completely destroyed, like those of many Christians in Arab countries, is a testament to the tolerance and incredible patience of the Jews. Palestinians must change their attitude if they want to change their circumstances.

Desmond Tutu Nominates Palestinian Mass-Murderer for Nobel Prize

South African archbishop says Marwan Barghouti

- jailed for masterminding suicide attacks -

is a 'defender of human rights.'

By Ari Soffer, Aretz Sheva


Marwan Barghouti - Reuters

South African archbishop and prominent anti-Israel campaigner Desmond Tutu has joined other activists in nominating imprisoned Palestinian arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tutu tabled the nomination in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Monday - cited by Al Arabiya - in which he hailed the Fatah-Tanzim commander as a symbol of the "struggle for freedom, [which] constitutes a clear signal of support for the realization of the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights, including to self-determination."

Desmond Tutu is a longtime anti-Israel activist, and is a member of the "International High Level Committee of the Campaign for the freedom of Barghouti and all Palestinian prisoners."

Barghouti was jailed for five life terms in 2002, for masterminding scores of deadly suicide bombing attacks on Israeli civilian targets during the Second Intifada. But many anti-Israel activists still tout him as a symbol of "nonviolent resistance," and label him a "political prisoner."

In his letter, Tutu characterized Barghouti's actions as fighting "for freedom and peace," and - even more ironically - hailed the mass-murderer as "an active advocate and defender of democracy and human rights, include women's rights, and of pluralism, both religious and political, in a region and a world that desperately needs such advocates."

The victims of Barghouti's attacks and the countless grieving relatives he left behind would likely beg to differ.

An advocate and defender of rights as long as they don't include Jewish right to life. Is Tutu in this for the money or the prestige? He is certainly not in it for the truth. He has accepted the absurd propaganda that Palestinians are the most oppressed people on earth; they must be - more UN business has to do with Israel and Palestinians than anything else. 

It's curious that Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank and even Gaza are a lot freer than any Palestinians living in the many refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Most of them receive little or no medical care or education, in stark contrast to the unlimited possibilities for education and medical care in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Yet, no-one seems to complain about their treatment. 

Barghouti, like all Palestinian terrorists, wants only one thing - the complete annihilation of Jews from the Holy Land. If Tutu is blind to that, what is it that hampers his view?

Bono: Refugee Crisis Threatens The ‘Integration of Europe’

U2 singer spoke to US senate subcommittee 

on causes and consequences of violent extremism

Bono prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington. He said the refugee crisis in Europe ‘has moved from practical to existential. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

Aine McMahon

U2 frontman Bono has said the refugee crisis threatens the “integration of Europe”.

The singer spoke to the US Senate’s State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee on the causes and consequences of violent extremism on Tuesday.

He was speaking after a recent trip to refugee camps in Kenya, Jordan and Turkey .

The two fictions

“The two fictions the expedition revealed are, number one, that this refugee problem is temporary. The typical crisis that creates refugees lasts 25 years. On our trip, Senator Graham and I heard the term “permanent temporary solution” thrown around, but without the irony that the phrase requires,” he said.

“The second fiction is that it is simply a Middle Eastern problem. Refugees are flowing from all over the world—especially Africa. Of the top ten countries that are hosting refugees today, five of them are African,” he said.

Yes, but many of these are internally displaced people, i.e. Nigeria. Not that that makes a difference, they are still refugees.

“Aid in 2016 is not charity; it is national security and when it is structured properly with a hard focus on fighting corruption and prudent governance to qualify for that aid it could be the beat bulwark we have against violent extremism that is gaining traction,” he said.

From Practical to Existential

Bono said the refugee crisis in Europe “ has moved from practical to existential.”

“In 1989 the wall that divided Europe came down, a remarkable moment to live through. Who could imagine in 2016 another set of walls are being built up, this time made of mesh and razor wire but walls nonetheless,” he said.

“Members of the Subcommittee, let me soberly suggest to you that the integration of Europe, the very idea of European unity is at risk here.”

“Europe is America’s most important ally since the Second World War… Are we not your most important ally in the fight against violent extremism? This stuff matters,” he said.

“Put simply, as we Europeans have learned, if the Middle East catches fire, the flames jump any border controls. And if Africa fails, Europe cannot succeed,” he said.

He said by 2050, the African population will have doubled to 2.5 billion, twice that of China and that 40 percent of the world’s youth will be African.

“ Of the ONE Campaign’s seven million members, three million of them are in Africa; we have a sense of their potential as an engine of growth, one that roars, but we also fear that if the young people of Africa are misled and marginalised, their anger could be channelled not to hope, but to hate,” he said.

ONE Campaign is a charity co-founded by Bono to address extreme poverty, and disease in poor countries.

Critical of response

Bono was also critical of the international communities response to the refugee crisis.

“The international community although it means well, is having a lot of meeting about the crisis and I believe it is issuing a record amount of press releases but what it is not doing is cutting cheques,” he said.

He said as of last month, the UN’s humanitarian response plan for 2016 had only received nine per cent of the funding they require.

“Grants are handed out annually on a hand to mouth basis with no predictability which makes it impossible to plan which is madness. It is absolute madness,” he said.

Bono also called for funding to be prioritised for the support of countries along the Sahel and the Levant who are not yet in crisis.

“I know this sounds counterintuitive, but the people I met—especially the military—told us it is critical that these countries not only survive but that they thrive. Imagine if the chaos that ripped through Syria were to engulf Egypt or, God forbid, Nigeria. These are giant countries,” he said.

Egypt has a population of about 82 million, and Nigeria about 175 million. That's over a quarter of a billion people. Imagine if half of them decided to relocate to Europe.