Heeding calls from their rabbis, religious teenage girls turned up in large numbers to protest the group’s insistence on praying at the wall in religious garb traditionally worn by men. The girls crammed the women’s section directly in front of the wall by 6:30 a.m., forcing the liberal women to conduct their prayer service farther back on the plaza. There, hundreds of police officers locked arms in cordons to hold back throngs of black-hatted Orthodox men who whistled, catcalled, and threw water, candy and a few plastic chairs.
The fight over how women pray at one of Judaism’s holiest sites is a singular fault line among many. Friday’s mass demonstration at the wall was widely seen as part of the intensifying culture war that poses a threat, if internal, to Israel’s social cohesion.
“We are looking at a process in which the public disdain with the way religion and state matters have occurred in Israel has reached a peak,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, the founder of Hiddush, a group that advocates for religious freedom and equality.
But Rabbi Israel Eichler, an ultra-Orthodox member of Parliament, warned that “if the state of Israel fights” the ultra-Orthodox, in Hebrew called Haredim, “it may win, but it will be erased from the face of the Earth.”
“There were thousands of seminary girls there today,” he said. “Each one of them will have 10 children. That is our victory.”
The showdown on Friday came two days after Israel’s attorney general ordered government ministries to end gender segregation in buses, cemeteries, health clinics and radio airwaves, and as Parliament is drafting sweeping legislation to integrate the swelling ultra-Orthodox minority into the army and work force, while cutting back the subsidies their large families rely on. Following decades in which ultra-Orthodox politicians provided critical swing votes in exchange for control over religious institutions, they were shut out of the governing coalition that formed this spring and have become an increasingly shrill part of the opposition.
Most Israelis care far less about the rules at the kotel, or Western Wall, a remnant of the retaining wall that surrounded the ancient Temple, than the ultra-Orthodox control of marriage, conversion and other matters that affect daily life. But a spate of arrests last fall of women wearing prayer shawls at the wall sparked an outcry from Jews abroad. That prompted Israel’s government to develop a long-term plan that would provide a new space where men and women can pray together and as they wish.
Buoyed by the recent court ruling allowing them to use prayer garments traditionally reserved for men, the women’s group, called Women of the Wall, has vowed to continue the monthly services it has held for a quarter century.
Friday was the first time ultra-Orthodox girls and women showed up in force to block them.
“I’m here so they won’t be,” said one of the teenagers, who like a dozen others interviewed spoke on the condition that her name not be published. “It’s forbidden for them to be here. It’s allowed by the court, but it’s forbidden by God. If I’m here, there won’t be room for them.”
The girls, who woke before dawn and poured onto buses from schools across Jerusalem as well as the ultrareligious suburbs of Beit Shemesh and Beitar Illit, said they had come because their leaders ordered them to.
Among the liberal women, a smaller-than-usual group of perhaps 100 made it to the Women of the Wall prayer circle, where much of the spirited chanting was drowned out by the boisterous men. Three of the men were arrested and two others detained for questioning.” Every time, there’s another stumbling block,” said Haviva Ner David, a rabbi and mother of seven who has been praying with Women of the Wall for two decades. “There are more non-Orthodox Jews than there are Haredi Jews in Israel, but they’re able to gather more troops.”
As the crowds dispersed, Yossi Parienti, commander of Jerusalem’s police force, said it was “painful and a pity to see the Western Wall become a field of battle instead of a holy place of prayer.”
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the head of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation — which controls the site — said, “We must find a solution that is acceptable to all, or to the majority, so that the Western Wall does not look as it did today.”
The heightened attention to the wall comes after more than two years of friction with the ultra-Orthodox over gender in the public sphere. Women have been barred from speaking at conferences, and an 8-year-old girl was spit on for dress that her ultra-Orthodox neighbors considered immodest. Vandals routinely black out women’s faces on advertising billboards.
Menachem Friedman, a sociology professor at Bar Ilan University who has studied the Haredi society, said that while a universal military draft and cut in subsidies are more substantive issues, “gender is the most vulnerable.”
“The most threatening thing for the Haredi society is the mixture,” Professor Friedman said. “Sex is always something we can’t control — we have to defend against it, we have to separate, to make it very clear separation between men and women. Why? Because sex is really penetrating inside everyone, even the most sacred man is not protected. That is the main idea of ultra-Orthodoxy.”
Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a law professor and director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar Ilan University, said: “What’s at stake here is the very characteristic of the state of Israel. Are we part of the Western world or are we part of the fundamentalist world?”
Irit Pazner Garshowitz contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 10, 2013
An earlier version of this article said incorrectly that Devorah Leff was lifted on a chair to celebrate her recent bat mitzvah. She was lifted on a woman’s shoulders.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/world/middleeast/3-ultra-orthodox-men-arrested-in-western-wall-standoff.html
SANAA – To see Sanaa’s Old City for the first time is like “a vision of a childhood dream world of fantasy castles,” a visitor once remarked, but official neglect and unruly construction are threatening to destroy that magic.
Yemen’s capital is one of the most ancient cities in the world, and entering its oldest quarter has been described “as perhaps the closest thing to time travel” we can experience.
Ancient “tower blocks,” some six storeys high, some nine, look like gingerbread castles. With ground floors of black lava stone, their upper storeys are of baked brick decorated with intricate geometric shapes and horizontal bands in gypsum whitewash.
Each quarter has a mosque, a hammam (Turkish bath) and a garden around which the houses were built.
In the past, water used for ablution in the mosque was then pooled to irrigate the gardens, used for growing vegetables, and waste was recycled to heat water in the hammams or for fertiliser.
That rich heritage is reflected in 103 mosques, some built more than a millennium ago, 14 hammams and more than 6,000 centuries-old houses, and the Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.
But preservationists are struggling against the ravages of the modern world. Randomly built concrete houses distort the Old City’s skyline, salt from the cement weakens its structure and the once-spacious gardens are disappearing.
Many people have abandoned their homes, which are costly to maintain, and moved to new villas outside of town. So the Old City has increasingly become a home for lower income people, who are even less able to stem the tide of dilapidation.
More and more of these houses, each of which stands as an individual piece of art, are collapsing because of decay, the recent installation of sewage pipes along the narrow alleys and heavy rainfall.
This is compounded by a lack of maintenance resulting from the indifference of the authorities, UNESCO warns.
And because of inadequate drainage, the rainy season poses an annual threat to the old mud brick buildings.
In February 2012, UNESCO urged the authorities “to ensure the protection of the cultural heritage” of the impoverished country. But the government has been absorbed by an ongoing political crisis and security threats, and had little time, or money, to spare for preservation.
Yemen was rocked by an Arab Spring-inspired uprising in 2011 that forced then President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office after a year of clashes in Sanaa between loyalists and opponents using medium and heavy weaponry.
Naji Saleh Thawaba, president of the General Organisation for the Preservation of the Historic Cities of Yemen (GOPHCY), said the government is now focused on holding a national dialogue to end political deadlock in the country.
“The government and the international community have only one thing in mind: the national dialogue, and have forgotten everything else — including heritage,” he said.
Founded in 1990, GOPHCY is an independent body that was set up to develop a strategy for sustainable development in Sanaa and other cities.
Thawaba’s bitter remark suggests his agency does not have the means to do the job.
“The ministry of finance has not allocated anything to the organisation, which is expected to prepare studies about preservation and prevent abuse,” he said.
Thawaba’s deputy, Ammatelrazzaq Jehaf, shares his concerns.
“We have a budget of five million riyals ($23,000/17,700 euros) for Sanaa… How can this amount be enough to take care of 600 houses?”
“The only practical solution is a UNESCO mission which would unify national and international efforts to preserve this heritage. Without such a mission, nothing will change,” says Thawaba.
Jehaf hopes UNESCO will reach out by “finding donors and financiers who would come to the aid of Sanaa.”
UNESCO has organised several missions to Sanaa to try to provide assistance to restoration projects.
But the UN organisation said no official information is available on the state of conservation of Old City properties “due to security restrictions.”
Sanaa residents feel their precious heritage is about to crumble, and blame authorities for not doing enough to protect it.
“We have no government attention while many homes are on the verge of collapse,” said Abdelaziz al-Dhahiani.
Another resident, Wazir al-Ghallab, echoed the sense of helplessness.
“We cannot restore them ourselves. We keep waiting for government intervention that never arrives. There are houses that have been ruined for 15 years and nobody cares,” he said.
“Sometimes the facade is slightly restored but the interior is left in ruins,” said Ghallab.
“Old Sanaa is an unmatched jewel that everyone should try to preserve.”
Article source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=58392
Dusit International, a leading Asian hospitality group, continues to promote its “Year of Expansion” at the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) in Dubai from yesterday to Thursday.
The company aims to more than double its portfolio of 17 international properties, including two serviced apartment complexes in the Middle East, over five years with a strong focus on that region.
Thierry Douin this year was appointed regional vice president in a move that the company says shows its commitment to strengthening its presence in the Middle East, after having begun operations there more than a decade ago. Douin will oversee the company’s expansion efforts, drive operating performance and supervise the opening of hotels from the Dubai regional office.
Coinciding with the ATM this year is the opening of Dusit Thani Abu Dhabi, a contemporary hotel and convention centre for the business traveller. Strategically located in the new business and government district, the complex is only 20 minutes from the international airport and 10 minutes from the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre.
The company says the hotel features unique facilities to provide the discerning traveller with the perfect city destination. There are 402 hotel rooms and 132 deluxe serviced apartments. The dining outlets range from Royal Thai cuisine to contemporary bistro fare. The hotel even boasts the third-largest atrium in the world. Its conference centre can host up to 2,000 guests and is complemented by a glass-panelled Skydome.
Besides the United Arab Emirates, other locations in the region slotted for future development are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.
In China, Dusit recently signed a 10-project joint venture agreement with a local partner. The cities targeted over five years are Shanghai, Kunming, Chengdu, Chongqing and Hainan.
In Thailand, the company will launch a hotel in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Khao Yai area next year. The property benefits from being adjacent to Khao Yai National Park, a World Heritage Site.
The company’s first hotel in sub-Saharan Africa will be the dusitD2 Nairobi in Kenya. Located within an exclusive development complex, the hotel will bring a mix of all-day dining outlets, meeting facilities, a spa and terrace bar to a neighbourhood of high-end residences, universities, government offices and embassies.
The property will be supported by the Dubai regional office, whose responsibilities have been expanded to cover East Africa, where the company hopes to develop projects in the future.
“This is a time of unprecedented growth for our company,” David Shackleton, chief operating officer, said yesterday.
“We have brought together a great team of industry professionals to bring these plans to fruition, and ATM Dubai is a fitting platform to share this news with our trade partners. We are taking the Dusit brand to new locations and are excited about our expansion plans.”
Latest stories in this category
- Australian interest rates cut to 2.75 per cent
- Sydney – Australia’s central bank shaved 25 basis..
- Krung Thai Bank
- GFPTG
We Recommend
- White elephant caught on camera in Phetchaburi
- Apparent images of a much-sought-after white..
- Social media is blurring line between public and..
- Green Earth Power to develop Myanmar’s first solar..
Comments conditions
Users are solely responsible for their comments.We reserve the right to remove any comment and revoke posting rights for any reason withou prior notice.
Article source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Dusit-International-showcases-Middle-East-expansio-30205502.html
But today, in the third year of a bloody civil war that has killed more than 70,000 Syrians, the hulking citadel has resumed its strategic role of earlier eras. President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have taken position in it to shell their enemies, and Syrian opposition fighters say they are desperate to capture it. For both sides, what was true in war then is true now: Those who control the citadel have the power to alter the front lines.
Modern Syria is dotted with medieval castles and citadels, many built high upon the ruins of earlier Roman or Mesopotamian dynasties in an archaeological landscape that experts say is among the richest in the world. But as the fortified structures gain new strategic purpose in Syria’s devastatingly modern civil war, archaeologists worry that what withstood ancient armies and earthquakes may now fall victim to airstrikes, shelling and other forms of 21st-century warfare.
Because of limited access, archaeologists and other experts say it is close to impossible to confirm reports of damage and looting to Syria’s castles and citadels, including the famed crusader castle Crak des Chevaliers, whose south wall has been nearly destroyed in the fighting, according to Syrian rebels.
But it is certain that they and many other historical and archaeological sites “have been affected by violent fights or occupation by armed forces for military purposes,” said Veronique Dauge, chief of the Arab States Unit at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Both the rebels and the Syrian government have pledged publicly to protect the nation’s ancient structures. But they are intensely battling for their control.
In Aleppo, the citadel has proved critical over months of fierce fighting. Syrian opposition fighters say regime snipers have staked out positions in the arrow slits of the ancient fortress, rendering the hilltop impregnable and allowing the snipers to cement a front line that roughly dissects the city in half — one swathe controlled by rebels, the other by the state.
Near the city of Homs, in the strategic Orontes River valley, which has served as a battleground of clashing empires for more than 4,000 years, Syrian rebels say they only recently routed regime troops from the heavily fortified walls of Crak des Chevaliers — one of the Middle East’s most fantastic crusader castles.
In the center of the old city of Homs, the citadel has changed hands at least three times in recent months, although some fighters say they only managed to hold it for a day. There, opposition forces say the regime has used the fortress to maintain its stranglehold on one of Syria’s most important and most virulently anti-Assad cities.
Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/ancient-syrian-castles-serve-again-as-fighting-positions/2013/05/04/5d2bb176-b3f8-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html
“This is like blowing up the Taj Mahal or destroying the Acropolis in Athens. This mosque is a living sanctuary,” said Helga Seeden, a professor of archaeology at the American University of Beirut. “This is a disaster. In terms of heritage, this is the worst I’ve seen in Syria. I’m horrified.”
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and a commercial hub, emerged as a key battleground in the nation’s civil war after rebels launched an offensive there last summer. Since then, the fighting has carved the city into rebel- and regime-held zones, killed thousands of people, forced thousands more to flee their homes and laid waste to entire neighborhoods.
The Umayyad Mosque complex, which dates mostly from the 12th century, suffered extensive damage in October as both sides fought to control the walled compound in the heart of the old city. The fighting left the mosque burned, scarred by bullets and trashed. Two weeks earlier, the nearby medieval covered market, or souk, was gutted by a fire sparked by fighting.
With thousands of years of written history, Syria is home to archaeological treasures that date back to biblical times, including the desert oasis of Palmyra, a cultural center of the ancient world. The nation’s capital, Damascus, is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.
At least five of Syria’s six World Heritage sites have been damaged in the fighting, according to UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural agency. Looters have broken into one of the world’s best-preserved Crusader castles, Crac des Chevaliers, and ruins in the ancient city of Palmyra were damaged. Both rebel and regime forces have set up bases in some of Syria’s significant historic sites, including citadels and Turkish bath houses, while thieves have stolen artifacts from museums.
The destruction of the minaret – which dated to 1090 and was the oldest surviving part of the Umayyad Mosque – brought outrage and grief.
“What is happening is a big shame,” said Imad a-Khal, a 59-year-old Christian businessman in Aleppo. “Thousands of tourists used to visit this site. Every day is a black day for Syrians.”
The main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, accused the government of intentionally committing “a crime against civilization and humanity” by destroying the minaret.
“The regime has done all it can to tear apart the Syrian social fabric,” the Coalition said in a statement. “By its killings and destruction of heritage, it is planting bitterness in the hearts of the people that will be difficult to erase for a long time to come.”
There were conflicting accounts about what leveled the minaret, leaving the once-soaring stone tower a pile of rubble and twisted metal scattered in the mosque’s tiled courtyard.
Article source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Umayyad-Mosque-a-UNESCO-world-heritage-site-falls-amid-battles-in-Syria/articleshow/19720531.cms
SANAA // Yemen’s capital is one of the most ancient cities in the world, but neglect by officials and unruly construction are threatening to destroy the UN world heritage site.
Ancient tower blocks, some six storeys high, some nine, look like gingerbread castles. With ground floors of black lava stone, their upper storeys are of baked brick decorated with intricate geometric shapes and horizontal bands in gypsum whitewash.
Each quarter has a mosque, a hammam and a garden around which the houses were built. In the past, water used for ablution in the mosque was then pooled to irrigate the gardens, used for growing vegetables, and waste was recycled to heat water in the hammams or for fertiliser.
That rich heritage is reflected in 103 mosques, some built more than a millennium ago, 14 hammams and more than 6,000 centuries-old houses, and the Old City was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in 1986.
But preservationists are struggling against the ravages of the modern world. Randomly built concrete houses distort the Old City’s skyline, salt from the cement weakens its structure and the once-spacious gardens are disappearing.
Many people have abandoned their homes, which are costly to maintain, and moved to new villas outside town. So the Old City has increasingly become a home for lower-income people even less able to stem the tide of dilapidation.
More and more of these houses, each of which stands as an individual piece of art, are collapsing because of decay, the recent installation of sewage pipes along the narrow alleys and heavy rainfall.
This is compounded by a lack of maintenance resulting from the indifference of the authorities, Unesco warns. And because of inadequate drainage, the rainy season poses an annual threat to the old mud-brick buildings.
In February last year, Unesco urged the authorities “to ensure the protection of the cultural heritage” of the impoverished country. But the government has been absorbed by political crises and security threats, and had little time, or money, to spare for preservation.
Yemen was rocked by an uprising in 2011 that forced Ali Abdullah Saleh out of the presidency after a year of clashes in Sanaa between loyalists and opponents.
Naji Saleh Thawaba, president of the General Organisation for the Preservation of the Historic Cities of Yemen (GOPHCY), said the government was now focused on holding a national dialogue to end political deadlock in the country.
“The government and the international community have only one thing in mind: the national dialogue, and have forgotten everything else – including heritage,” he said.
Founded in 1990, GOPHCY is an independent body set up to develop a strategy for sustainable development in Sanaa and other cities.
“The ministry of finance has not allocated anything to the organisation, which is expected to prepare studies about preservation and prevent abuse,” Mr Thawaba said.
Mr Thawaba’s deputy, Ammatelrazzaq Jehaf, shared his concerns.
“We have a budget of five million riyals [Dh85,600] for Sanaa … How can this amount be enough to take care of 600 houses?”
“The only practical solution is a Unesco mission which would unify … efforts to preserve this heritage. Without such a mission, nothing will change,” Mr Thawaba said.
Mr Jehaf hopes Unseco will help by “finding donors and financiers who would come to the aid of Sanaa”.
Unesco has organised several missions to Sanaa to try to provide assistance to restoration projects. But Unesco said no official information was available on the state of conservation of Old City properties “due to security restrictions”.
Sanaa residents feel their heritage is crumbling and blame authorities for not doing enough to protect it.
“We have no government attention while many homes are on the verge of collapse,” said Abdelaziz Al Dhahiani.
Another resident, Wazir Al Ghallab, echoed the sense of helplessness. “We cannot restore them ourselves. We keep waiting for government intervention that never arrives,” he said. “Sometimes the facade is slightly restored but the interior is left in ruins. Old Sanaa is an unmatched jewel that everyone should try to preserve.”
Article source: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/unesco-world-heritage-site-crumbles-amid-neglect-and-unruly-construction
After the Boston Marathon bombings, many Americans displayed idiocy in two distinct ways. First, some Twitter users started blaming the Czech Republic for the attacks, prompting Czech ambassadors to go to the Associated Press to clarify the difference between their Central European country and the Russian region known as Chechnya, where the suspects had come from.
But second, and far worse, Republicans began to link the attacks to lax immigration laws, leading conservative lawmakers on the Hill to say that they will attempt to further restrict the immigration process.
That move by some Republicans shows exactly how out of touch they are with the problems facing this country.
Both Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who are ethnic Chechens from Dagestan and are widely believed to be behind the bombing, legally resided in this country. Dzhokhar, who is in custody, is an American citizen. According to the Washington Post, Sen. Rand Paul wrote in an open letter that Chechnya is “an area known as the hotbed of Islamic extremism,” as if that alone should bar immigrants from that region.
The argument that Paul is making is Islamophobic and racist. Paul is equating Islam with terror, when the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people. Furthermore, the mere fact that the brothers were part of an ethnic group that is fighting against Russia should not disqualify them from citizenship. The Tsarnaevs did not choose to be born Chechen. Here, Paul appears to discriminate against hardworking people simply because of their ethnic heritage.
Unfortunately, other Republicans are beginning to follow Paul’s lead. Sen. Charles Grassley, proposed tougher checks on anyone wanting to enter the United States, according to the New York Times.
Grassley and other lawmakers should understand that wanting to come to this nation should not be probable cause to have American police forces examine every part of a person’s life.
Politicians are right to want to stop terror attacks on American soil. Every lawmaker should concentrate on keeping the American people safe. However, immigration is a red herring with regard to national security. The U.S. has some of the best police forces in the world and should concentrate on using legal investigative techniques to look for clues that alert law enforcement to a potential threat. Targeting people because of their ethnicity, religion or desire to move this country is unconstitutional and unethical at best.
If Republicans want to deal with the root causes of animosity toward the United States, then they would do better to help improve America’s image in the Muslim world.
The wars in the Middle East and the blatant Islamophobia from congressional leaders causes terrorist groups like al-Qaeda to legitimately be able to say that America oppresses Muslims. Every time a hegemonic state such as the U.S. imposes its will through force on a group, that group turns against the oppressors, and according to counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism expert David Kilcullen, that is one of the fundamental flaws with American counter-terror and counterinsurgency efforts.
Republican legislators who are in positions of power think of the country as the proverbial city on the hill while simultaneously bashing Islam and numerous other minority groups. It is no wonder extremists are willing to kill Americans.
As for immigration reform, Republicans should approve paths to citizenship, allow increased legal immigration and ease entry restrictions into this country. In a time of economic hardship, Keynesians rightly argue that a reinvigorated workforce and the resulting flow of capital will help pull the American economy out of the gutter. Furthermore, an influx of new people living in this country will require additional housing, and President Barack Obama has already acknowledged with his proposed budget numbers that housing is going to be one of the biggest areas for American economic growth in the coming years. In that way, allowing more immigrants is nothing but a benefit for this country.
Some Americans on Twitter confused Chechnya and the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, a few republican lawmakers proved to be the real problem with their impossible antics in Congress.
Dan Morgan-Russell is a freshman majoring in international relations global business.
Article source: http://dailytrojan.com/2013/04/28/immigration-not-blame-for-bombing/
