GRAN CANARIA EN SU ENCRUCIJADA

GRAN CANARIA EN SU ENCRUCIJADA

sábado, 26 de marzo de 2011

EL LIBRO

“ANTE LA FALACIA Y LA DEMAGOGIA, LA INFORMACIÓN OBJETIVA”:

El analista turístico-económico grancanario, Antonio Garzón Beckmann, ha publicado un libro con el titular “Condicionantes de la competitividad turística grancanaria” en el que expone con claridad meridiana una amplia visión del desarrollo turístico-económico de Gran Canaria en el pasado, en el presente e inmersión en el futuro. Pocas veces, si es que ha habido veces anteriores en Gran Canaria, se ha compendiado en un solo libro una visión tan minuciosa, tan objetiva y con aportación tan exhaustiva de datos comparativos que permiten llegar sobre la marcha a conclusiones sin posibilidades de error sobre los numerosos temas que trata, tanto en el aspecto turístico, económico, empresarial o política de personal. Se puede decir, sin la menor posibilidad de errar, que es un manual preciso y claro que puede ser de incalculable valor para la toma de decisiones tanto de políticos, empresarios y todos los estamentos de la Administración que toman parte decisiva en la planificación del desarrollo económica de Gran Canaria. Es, también, una guía clara y precisa que cualquier grancanario que se interese por el desarrollo de su Isla en los aspectos que tanto pueden influenciar en su actividad del día a día, como es el turismo. Si bien se tratan en él temas de Gran Canaria en especial, su contenido puede ser de aplicación a cualquier zona de la geografía nacional en la que el factor turismo juegue un papel importante en su economía y vida cotidiana.

Nos encontramos ante un ‘manual’, ‘El Libro’, que, por ser totalmente apolítico y generosamente documentado, puede ser utilizado como libro de consulta para políticos de cualquier ideología en puestos decisorios, por funcionarios en cargos de responsabilidad, así como por empresarios, masa trabajadora y ciudadanía en general.

PUNTOS DE VENTA ('PINCHAR' SOBRE LA IMAGEN PARA AMPLIARLA)


También directamente a través de Internet. En este último caso puede obtener los datos pertinentes en la página web: www.antoniogarzon.com,

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 26 de marzo de 2011.
Daniel Garzón Luna

('CLICKEAR' SOBRE LOS TEXTOS PARA AMPLIARLOS Y FACILITAR SU LECTURA)



jueves, 24 de marzo de 2011

KATSAV'S MARK OF SHAME IS A BADGE OF HONOR FOR ISRAEL

(GRAN CANARIA EN SU ENCRUCIJADA (y CXII -112-)

Katsav's mark of shame is a badge of honor for Israel

La vergüenza de Katsav es un distintivo de honor para Israel.(Titular del Editorial de “HAARETZ.com” de 23 de marzo 2011)

“Incluso si la sentencia es reducida en una apelación, hay una cosa que no cambiará: Que la persona que firmaba las leyes de Israel y tomaba juramento a sus jueces será castigada muy severamente por violar esas leyes e irá a prisión durante años.”

“Los jueces del Tribunal del Distrito de Tel Aviv, George Karra, Miriam Sokolov y Judith Shevach pusieron ayer un hito para el Estado de Israel.”


El Tribunal del Distrito de Tel Aviv condenó el pasado día 22 de los corrientes a Moshe Katsav a siete años de prisión por el delito de violación cometido con empleadas a sus órdenes durante su mandato como ministro de Turismo y más tarde como presidente de Israel. Esta sentencia, precisamente por recaer sobre la que ha sido primera autoridad del Estado de Israel desde 2000 a 2007, ha dado muestra y ejemplo de lo que significa en una democracia, en la que el imperio de la Ley y el Derecho es inamovible y la aplicación “del que todos los ciudadanos son iguales ante la Ley” es un hecho y no es pura falacia.

Israel, un Estado joven donde los haya, ha demostrado con esta sentencia que goza de una justicia independiente a todas luces, realidad que naciones con muchos siglos de historia ya quisieran para sí, especialmente naciones como España, la nación más antigua de Europa como unidad nacional.

La sentencia de la justicia judía en el caso de Moshe Katsav me hace sentir envidia del pueblo judío porque ha demostrado que goza de una Justicia totalmente independiente, cosa que España, después de sus muchos siglos de existencia como Nación, está aún por conseguir, a pesar de que La Constitución española actual así lo estipula. España tiene a su justicia acogotada y rehén de la política en los grandes temas nacionales, inmersa en un páramo desértico que produce desazón y desaliento a la inmensa mayoría de los españoles que con gran ilusión apostamos en su día por la Democracia, la cual nunca será completa mientras la Justicia (jueces y fiscales) no sean totalmente independientes de los otros dos poderes, el legislativo y el ejecutivo.

‘Chapó’ al pueblo de Israel que ha sabido cimentar en muy corto periodo de tiempo una democracia con el bastión de la Justicia con absoluta independencia de los poderes ejecutivo y legislativo.

A cuento de la citada sentencia, el diario digital israelí “HAARETZ.com” ha publicado el pasado día 23 un editorial sobre la importancia de esta sentencia para el Estado de Israel que, por su relevante contenido, reproduzco a continuación íntegramente y en su versión original. Caso de que el lector precise de la traducción del texto en otro idioma puede recurrir al traductor de este blog y elegir la lengua deseada ‘pinchando’ sobre la bandera correspondiente.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 24 de marzo de 2011.
Daniel Garzón Luna


Katsav's mark of shame is a badge of honor for Israel

Even if the sentence is reduced in an appeal one thing will not change: That the person who used to sign Israel's laws and swore in its judges will be severely punished for violating those laws and will go to jail for years.

Haaretz Editorial

District Court judges George Karra, Miriam Sokolov and Judith Shevach set a milestone for the State of Israel yesterday. They placed the severity of former President Moshe Katsav's sexual offenses and the prominence of his position on the scales of justice. They thought about it and shifted Katsav's position of authority to the side of the offenses. They deliberated further and decided that Katsav is a serial sexual offender, and they sentenced him, by majority vote, to seven years in prison.

Even if the sentence is reduced on appeal to the Supreme Court, coming closer to Shevach's suggested four-year prison term, that will be nothing but a quantitative change to the fundamental fact that the person who used to sign Israel's laws and swore in its judges will be severely punished for violating those laws and will go to jail for years.

The person most responsible for Katsav's fall from grace is the former president himself. While holding public office, posts that became increasingly high in stature, he abused his authority to force his desires on women who happened to fall within his purview. When he got into trouble, he lied and defamed his accusers in an attempt to portray himself as victim rather than assailant.

In 2008, Katsav rejected the controversial, generous and overly lenient plea bargain he was offered by then-Attorney General Menachem Mazuz. Instead of sobering up, expressing remorse and asking for forgiveness, Katsav continued to attack the victims, the witnesses, the prosecution, the media and the courts, demonstrating to the country that there would be no rehabilitation for him.

His sentence, in addition to punishing Katsav and compensating the victims, also sends two important messages. It encourages victims of sexual offenses to speak out about the crimes, no matter how high and mighty is the assailant, and it deters public figures from believing in the illusion that their position will buy them immunity. The courts have already convicted former ministers Yitzhak Mordechai and Haim Ramon of sexual offenses, but they were not sentenced to jail; now the Katsav trial demonstrates even more forcefully that the police, the state prosecution and, ultimately, the judges do not automatically attribute to prominent men a tendency to attract false complaints from women. From here on, all senior officials will know that their job titles do not, in the words of the judges in the Katsav case, constitute a hunting license. It's no great comfort, but Katsav's mark of shame is a badge of honor for Israel's police investigators, prosecutors and judges.

lunes, 21 de marzo de 2011

UN FUNERAL PARA EL ESTADO DE ISRAEL (Original: A funeral for the State of Israel)

GRAN CANARIA EN SU ENCRUCIJADA (y CXI -111-)


UN FUNERAL PARA EL ESTADO DE ISRAEL (Original: A funeral for the State of Israel)

El pasado día 11 de los corrientes tuvo lugar un crimen horrendo, el más execrable que se recuerda, en los asentamientos de Itmar, Cisjordania. Cinco miembros de la familia judía Fogel fueron asesinados, el matrimonio de 37 y 36 años respectivamente y tres niños de 10, 4 y 3 años.

Como era de esperar, en cierto modo, un crimen tan horrendo no podía dejar de ser politizado y así ha sido, a pesar de los deseos del hermano del padre de familia asesinado que no quería un funeral político para su familia. Esta politización del dolor, oportunamente utilizado por los ultras, ha merecido el artículo de Bradley Burston “A funeral for the State of Israel” publicado el pasado día 19 en el diario digital israelí “HAARETZ.COM”.

Dado la importancia del comentario de Bradley Burston sobre las reacciones al vil asesinato, lo transcribo literalmente pues será de mucho interés para quienquiera que se interese por los acontecimientos en el Medio Oriente. Quien prefiera el texto en un idioma diferente al inglés original puede recurrir al traductor incorporado en este blog en el que puede elegir idioma ‘pinchando’ sobre la bandera de la nación deseada.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 21 de marzo de 2011.
Daniel Garzón Luna



A funeral for the State of Israel

In this unbearable week, the Fogel family has been all but forgotten in the welter of uses that have been made of them, polemic, political, personal.By

Bradley Burston

All this week I've resisted putting something terrible into words.
All this week I've been wondering why the Jerusalem burial ceremony for Ruth and Udi Fogel, their infant daughter Hadas and their two small sons Yoav and Elad, seemed so much like a funeral for the State of Israel itself.


The funeral of five members of the Fogel family, who were murdered in a knife attack in the settlement of Itamar, March 13, 2011.
Photo by: Daniel Bar-On

What was the meaning of this funeral, and of the monstrous crime of slaughtering a lovely young family in its sleep? For the religious right, it seemed to be saying: This is what you can expect, now and forever, over and again, until the Messiah comes to put an end to this unbearable, unextinguished anguish.

For the rest of us, it seemed to be saying, if possible, something even worse:
This is exactly what you can expect. This is your future. An endless procession of killings and escalation and enmity and settlement and condemnation and heartbreak and no negotiations and a broken Jewish people and no compromise and more settlement and a shattered Judaism, until the day that a vote is taken and the Palestinians are more numerous than we, and the flag which is based on the prayer shawl and the

Shield of David is pulled down for the last time.
For years now, and especially over the last decade, the adults on both sides have made children into legitimate targets. And now we, the adults on both sides, have made slain children into legitimate tools - for incitement, for escalation, for the production of more deaths of the innocent and the defenseless.

The length of this unbearable week, the Fogel family has been all but forgotten in the welter of uses that have been made of them, polemic, political, personal. No one felt this, nor expressed this, more powerfully than Motti Fogel, Udi's younger brother, whose quiet words at the funeral struck chords deeper than did the agenda-ridden speechmaking of the high and mighty.

“All the slogans about Torah and settlement, the Land of Israel and the people of Israel are attempts to forget the simple and pain-torn fact: you are dead. You are dead, and no slogan will bring you back.

"You are not a symbol or a national event. Your life was a purpose in and of itself, and it should be forbidden for your terrible death to turn your life into some sort of tool."

We are not the same people that we were before these murders. On both sides, the killing of children leaves terrible scars. The scars tempt us to feel the deaths of our own children and somehow process or deny or legitimize or excuse away the deaths on the side of our neighbor. Our enemy. Even worse, in some respects, than an eye for an eye, is the state to which we have descended – a blind eye for a blind eye.
If there is any meaning at all to this week and to this tragedy, it is this: No child is an enemy. No child.

If there is any hope in this, it may be in the words of a Palestinian shopkeeper in Nablus, the city a few miles north of the Fogels’ home in Itamar, a city Israelis have long feared as a center of some of the bitterest of their enemies.

"They were people who were at home, sleeping, in their place of safety," the merchant said of the Fogels, out loud, on television. "Just like that – to come in and kill them with a knife? Where is your heart? Where is your sense of mercy? Where is your humanity? Where? This is simply – this man has no heart. He has nothing. Whoever did this is an animal."

If there is any lesson in this, it is that the children of Itamar, of Nablus, of Jerusalem, of Rafah, of Tel Aviv, deserve better from us. We can choose to believe that the Gaza child throwing candies to celebrate the murders represents the will of the Palestinian people as a whole, just as Palestinians can decide that the Jewish child in the Sheikh Jarrah settlement who will on Sunday night sing Purim songs celebrating Baruch Goldstein, represents the will of the Jewish people as a whole.
Or we can choose to believe that all of us, Palestinian and Jew, are nothing more or less than human beings, loving, caring and, yes, mortally imperfect. And that most of us, on both sides, are people who, despite everything - despite their grief and their rage and their one-sided, blind-eye narrative and their truly unjust history and the guaranteed injustice of any possible solution – actually want the same thing: a future for their children in an independent country living alongside and at peace with the people who are now their enemy.
For every child. Both sides. For every child.

domingo, 13 de marzo de 2011

LOS EE UU HAN TENIDO YA SUFICIENTE DE LA BERBORREA DE NETANYAHU (Traducción del original)

(GRAN CANARIA EN SU ENCRUCIJADA (y CX -110-)

Yoel Marcus


LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS HAN TENIDO YA SUFICIENTE DE LA VERBORREA DE NETANYAHU
(Original: U.S HAS HAD ENOUGH OF NETANYAHU’S BABBLING)

Con este titular comenzaba el columnista Yoel Marcus su artículo en el diario digital israelí “HAARETZ.COM” el pasado día 12 de los corrientes. Es un comentario que expone de forma clara y diáfana la situación de estancamiento que sufren las negociaciones de paz entre palestinos e israelíes. Quedan ya pocas dudas sobre la falta de voluntad de los ultras israelíes a negociar una paz que ellos consideran como concesiones gratuitas a los palestinos dado la posición de incuestionable fuerza que su ejército no ha dejado de ostentar en el Medio Oriente desde todos los tiempos de la existencia del estado de Israel. No quedan muchas dudas de que la minoría ultra que sustenta al gobierno de Netanyahu sueña con un futuro expansionista pero quimérico y se distancia de aprovechar situaciones óptimas, como las actuales, de alcanzar acuerdos que comprometan a todas las potencias del globo a ser garantes de la seguridad de Israel, además de su reconocimiento como estado soberano por parte del mundo árabe.

Por supuesto que los acuerdos tendrían que pasar también por la instauración de un estado palestino y devolución de los territorios ocupados en la guerra de los Seis Días. Muy difícil será en el futuro encontrar una administración de EE.UU. tan dispuesta a conseguir esos acuerdos de paz como hoy lo está la Administración de Obama; por lo menos en lo que a hacer concesiones a Israel se refiere como prueba de su disposición incuestionable a respaldar esos acuerdos.
Como quiera que la paz palestina/israelí no atañe sólo a los pueblos implicados sino que concierne a casi todo el mundo por las repercusiones que podrían tener a escala mundial nuevas hostilidades en la zona, sería deseable que la Unión Europea se involucrara más en alentar esas negociaciones con un inequívoco respaldo a los compromisos que en los acuerdos se estipulen a cumplir por las potencias del globo. A todo esto ¿no habrá llegado el momento de que el pueblo de Israel decida en referéndum si está dispuesto a ceder territorios ocupados a cambio de acuerdos de paz? Tal vez sí haya llegado ese momento porque mientras las facciones ultras israelíes sean necesarias para mantener el gobierno de Tel-Aviv difícilmente entrará Israel en la línea de las concesiones con absoluta convicción de ello.
A continuación transcribo el mentado artículo de Yoel Marcus que resulta de lo más instructivo.

Si precisase de traductor para leer el artículo de Yoel Marcus puede recurrir al traductor instantáneo de este blog en la lengua que prefiera.
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 12 de marzo de 2011
Daniel Garzón Luna

• Published 02:29 11.03.11
• Latest update 02:29 11.03.11

U.S. has had enough of Netanyahu's babbling
(LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS HAN TENIDO YA SUFICIENTE VERBORREA DE PARTE DE NETANYAHU)

(Ariel Sharon: “The time has come to end our addition to the dream of greater Israel”) (Palabras de Ariel Sharon; “Ha llegado el tiempo de poner punto final a nuestra adicción al sueño del gran Israel)

In view of the Americans' disappointment after Netanyahu's Bar-Ilan speech, only acts of substance will impress them and the rest of the world.

By Yoel Marcus

What is the common denominator linking proposed solutions for the housing market and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute? In both cases, it's all just talk. Bibi believes that words replace deeds, and he puts what we say ahead of what we do. His attempts to mitigate international pressure on Israel by promising a "path-breaking" speech in a few weeks, either before the U.S. Congress, or at the annual AIPAC conference. The key element is that it be delivered in Washington. Why? Is the Knesset insufficiently distinguished for his taste?

At the same time, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, increasingly eccentric with each public appearance, claimed in interviews with Arieh Golan on Israel Radio and with the Wall Street Journal that Israel needs $20 billion in additional aid, in view of the volatile situation that has developed in the region. Implicitly, this call for more dollars is a precondition for presenting a "daring plan" to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dan Halperin, a former diplomat in Washington and an expert on U.S.-Israel relations, says that Bibi and Barak have forgotten a well-known American saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. In view of the Americans' disappointment after Netanyahu's Bar-Ilan speech, only acts of substance will
impress them and the rest of the world. They've heard enough speeches.

Whoever has his feet on the ground, and understands how deep is the crisis of confidence marring our relations with Washington, not to mention the economic stagnation gripping America, knows that prospects of receiving additional assistance depend entirely on genuine progress in the peace process - taking risks, such as (for example ) the return of the Golan Heights, or the designation of borders so the Palestinians can feel, at long last, that they have a state of their own. Even in this scenario, an American government well-versed in dealings with us will tread carefully. Obama cannot afford to come out looking like a sucker.

Apparently, Barak was much impressed by Ari Shavit's column of March 3, which referred to a Bar-Ilan II speech of Churchill-like dimensions. Interviewed by Golan, Barak said the time has come for leadership, and for making important decisions. "Bibi admires Churchill, but I say that these are decisions more on the level of Ben-Gurion or de Gaulle," Barak said.

It's not clear why Barak felt a need for such distinctions. To deliver a Churchillian speech, one needs, first of all, to be Churchill. Nor are there Ben-Gurions in these parts; a Ben-Gurion is a leader who knows where he's headed, and who has the strength to tell the truth to his countrymen. Ariel Sharon did not deliver speeches in Congress or the UN; instead, he spoke to his people via an interview in Haaretz, and before he evacuated Gaza, he spoke historic words: "The time has come to end our addiction to the dream of Greater Israel."

As Barak sees it, Bibi has sweeping support for any daring decision he might reach. That depends on who you ask. Barak himself can contribute a mere five Knesset votes. Benny Begin, asked about the putative peace proposal, replied nonchalantly that he does not know how to talk about eggs before they are hatched.

One political commentator said recently that when Bibi talks about how every settlement built on private land will be razed, whereas retroactive authorization will be given for houses built on state land, he must think that everyone is dumb. Retroactive authorization for most of the settlements would be an illegal act. Bibi is trying to lessen international pressure on Israel by talking about a breakthrough speech in a few weeks in the U.S. Why does Bibi believe he can appear before Congress with an egg that has yet to be hatched? Who knows? Perhaps after the strange precedent set by Obama, he will receive a Nobel Peace Prize, even before he does anything.

While Barak is a careful commentator, when it comes to words, Bibi is a wizard. He wants the grandest stage, and instead of writing the play, he wants to produce and direct it. But if he really does have a plan, it is important that he present it first to the Knesset, and his people. We've had enough of babbling on about nothing.

This story is by: Yoel Marcus

A QUIEN PUEDA CONCERNIR:
En este blog reproduzco sin fines lucrativos fotografías, vídeos, artículos de diferente naturaleza y otras informaciones o archivos procedentes de Internet y de la prensa común. En caso que usted encuentre alguna publicación de su propiedad y desee su retirada, sólo tiene que ponerse en contacto conmigo y sin demora atenderé su petición.

sábado, 5 de marzo de 2011

EL MANDAMIENTO OLVIDADO (THE FORGOTTEN COMMANDMENT)

(GRAN CANARIA EN SU ENCRUCIJADA (y CIX -109)
EL MANDAMIENTO OLVIDADO (Original: The forgotten Commandment)
El diario digital israelita HAARETZ.COM publicó el pasado día cuatro un artículo del periodista judío Donniel Hartmann el cual, por su profundo y claro enfoque de la crisis que están viviendo las naciones árabes del Golfo y Norte de África, transcribo literalmente.

Si tuviese dificultad con el idioma inglés para leerlo, le recomiendo que haga uso del traductor de este blog que le facilitará su lectura en la lengua que prefiera.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 5 de marzo de 2011.
Daniel Garzón Luna

Donniel Hartman


The Forgotten Commandment (27/02/2011)
By DONNIEL HARTMAN

The voices of the Arab masses are demanding that they be heard.

We all have much to learn from the popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world. The tyrants and dictators whose authority is now being challenged are not a uniquely Arab phenomenon. They embody a perspective on life and the world which can be found in all of our societies. It is a perspective shared by many fundamentalist religious leaders and constitutes a source of evil which endangers us all.

The tyrant who feels that it is his right to rob his society's resources to amass a personal fortune, who places his family's and friends' financial interests above that of his people, who declares, as did Qaddafi, that "those who don't love me do not deserve to live," all suffer from the same moral blindness. When they look out into the world they do not see a universe populated by others but merely an extension of themselves. Everything that is and exists is there to serve them. There is no "other" with whom they have to share, and to whom they have to answer.

Religious fundamentalism often suffers from a similar moral blindness. The certainty it provides, and the dichotomous world of "us" and "them" which it so often creates, structures a universe in which they, too, have no one else to whom they must answer and whom they have to take into account. When I own religious truth I no longer have to listen to the words of others. When only those who agree with me are loved by God and are worthy, all others recede into the background and become insignificant.

I am sure that the rabbis who came out in support of the convicted rapist, former Israeli President Moshe Katsav, were surprised at the extent of the protest against them. They function in a world in which their authority as the carriers of Torah is unquestioned. As the possessors of the truth they are uninterested in the opinions of others and the effect their words may have. To echo Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai's statement to his son Rabbi Eliezer, "The world doesn’t need anybody else, but you and me." (Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 33b) This is the same Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai who was willing to kill anyone who did not fulfill his vision of religious piety, and whom God banishes from God's world.

These rabbis, similar to political tyrants, forgot one of the commandments, a commandment which when absent makes religion in general and the leader, religious or secular, a destructive force. It is a commandment which our tradition teaches is the only one for which there is no atonement in this world if violated. In the Jewish tradition, this commandment is called hillul hashem, the desecration of God's name.

The conceptual foundation for this commandment is that no one can act in isolation, and that all behavior must be judged in accordance with its effect on others and their perception of the value of both the act and its agent. God, who epitomizes transcendence and radical otherness, has with the act of creation chosen to live within this world and human society. By obligating us to act in such a way that God's name will not be profaned, our tradition is instituting a profound check and balance on us all. We alone don’t get to determine the impact and consequences of our actions. We don’t get to ignore others under the guise of them being insignificant, inferior, or unworthy. The world as God's domain empowers the voices of all human beings to serve as the evaluators of those who claim to be the carriers of God's name.

It is in that spirit that the rabbis, when asking what constitutes the desecration of God's name, answered, "k'gon anna," which means, if we, the rabbis, are perceived to use our religious position and authority for personal gain. (BT Yoma 86a.) Whether true or false, the religious leader must relinquish all claims to controlling the impact of their behavior by limiting their significant others. The God of creation makes all one's significant other, and one must act accordingly. As a result, the rabbis state that one fulfills the commandment of love of God when one causes the name of God to be beloved by others. The test of this love is not faith or ritual piety, but moral decency in one's interactions with others. When one does so, one brings honor to oneself, one's religion and to one's God, and instead of desecrating the Name, one sanctifies it.

The voices of the Arab masses are demanding that they be heard. They are demanding to live in a society in which they are the significant others and that their leaders feel obligated to a policy whose value can be judged and attested to by them. We, who live under political systems where we the citizens are the sovereign, have to expand our sovereignty to our religious lives, as well. We must demand accountability, propriety, and decency from anyone who speaks in the name of our religion and our God. We do so not in the name of our liberal values, but our religious ones. We do so in the name of the forgotten commandment.