French city freezes twin cities agreement with Safed to pressure Israel

[Jefferson23]

City of Lille is also twinned with West Bank city of Nablus. President of Jewish umbrella organization says move 'corresponds with hateful attitudes to the Israeli people.'

By JTA | Oct. 8, 2014 | 9:10 PM

JTA - The City Council of Lille froze the French municipality’s twinning agreement with Safed to press the Israeli government to end its conflict with the Palestinians.

The council voted Monday on what was described as a “temporary freeze” on twinning with the northern Israeli city, the Le Figaro daily reported.

The vote is one of several “initiatives taken notably by the European Parliament to call for a freezing of the privileged agreements with Israel in order to pressure the government and accelerate the resolution of the conflict,” said council member Marie-Pierre Bresson of the Green Party.

Lille Mayor Martine Aubry, of the ruling Socialist Party, told the AFP news agency that the twinning agreement with Safed has not been canceled, but she did not say when the freeze would be lifted. Lille also is twinned with the Palestinian city of Nablus.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.619969

[azurnoir]

1. Little by little.........

went that way with South Africa too

[oberliner]

2. Someday all Israeli citizens will be allowed to vote regardless of race

Palestinian citizens of Israel may even serve in the Israeli partliament one day!

[Scootaloo]

3. Well, oberliner, your sarcasm raises an interesting point...

American blacks could vote after the ratification of the 15th amendment in 1870. some black men were even elected to various state offices.

Clearly this meant that blacks and whites were fully equal. Right? By the logic of your mockery, that would seem to be the case. "It's not apartheid because they can vote!" "LOL WUT INEQUALITY U HAEV KNESSET MEMBERS ROFL"

Sure, they can vote. it's just that their votes don't really matter. if they vote in their own self-interest, those votes go towards a couple of parties that are denied any actual representation in the governance of the nation, and have been so denied since the inception of the nation. If the Palestinian Israelis want their votes to go towards someone who's going to hold power in israel, they need to vote for one of hte myriad anti-Palestinian parties that actively seek to screw over those same voters.

So. sort of like the situation of black voters in the 1920's; Men and women can vote. They can either vote for the republicans, who will never hold power where the voters are living, or they can vote for democrats, who actively persecute black voters. Equality!

[oberliner]

4. Thank you

The comparison was made to South Africa not to America. In apartheid South Africa, blacks were not afforded the right to vote, nor could they serve in parliament.

[Scootaloo]

5. Yet both are systems of apartheid.

Much like genocide or fascism, it's a broad word that comes in numerous themes and flavors.

[King_David]

6. Nonsense yet again,

Apartheid is unique Afrikaans word coined by Verwoerd particularly to his vision of South Africa.

It's anything but a broad word.

It means apartness in Afrikaans.

[Scootaloo]

7. I guess Fascism is Italian-only then

I mean given its coinage by Benito Mussolini and its Latin root that centers on a Roman concept, and its use to instill a new-era sense of Roman nationalism. Yes?

yeah, I'm afraid your post is nonsense, yet again. You'd have to be a real fucking moron to imagine that America's jim crow and South Africa's apartheid are totally different concepts that should never be correlated due to different etymologies.

[King_David]

8. Because you say "fucking moron"

Doesn't give your post Gravitas.

In fact no one takes it seriously and it's treated with the respect that the post deserves.