Belgian police held a Palestinian minister on board his plane on Friday after Dutch authorities withdrew his visa to attend a conference in the Netherlands, Dutch authorities and conference organizers said. Youth and Sports Minister Bassem Naim, a Hamas member, arrived in Brussels on a flight from Egypt after being granted a visa by Dutch authorities in Tel Aviv. But he was prevented from disembarking by 10 Belgian police, said Majed al-Zeer, director of the London-based Palestinian Return Center and one of the organizers of Saturday's conference on Palestinian refugees.
"What happened on the flight was the humiliation of the Palestinian people," Al-Zeer told The Associated Press. "He was not even allowed to go to the toilet." Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Dadou said Naim had been granted a visa but that it was withdrawn on Thursday after checks revealed his Hamas affiliation. Dadou said Dutch authorities contacted Naim and made it clear he would not pass through Dutch immigration control. "We told him his visa was canceled from that moment ... and for that reason there was no way he would be able to get into the Netherlands by legal means," Dadou said. Naim tried to board an Amsterdam-bound flight Thursday night but was turned away, Dadou said. He then managed to get on an Egyptian plane from Cairo to Brussels on Friday. "Now he will be sent back with the first flight available," Dadou said.
Wow. The Palestinian Authority has a ministerial portfolio for Youth & Sports. Get your head around that idea. Of course, depending on how you define “youth, sport and Palestinian Authority” - will determine whether the idea of the Minister of Youth & Sports lecturing at a conference on the plight of Palestinian Refugees as downright bizarre or not.
2 comments:
Kate:
Of course it's bizaare; the entire PA is just a version of the Superman comic's "Bizarro World;" they even have a Minister of Tourism.
I'm just glad that there are some people in Europe still willing to spurn PA ministers for being bloodthirsty terrorists.
I think the most bizarre aspect of the PA, though, is not the titles of their portfolios, but their very existence. I think the palis are the only people in the world who've managed to build a government, embassies, and all of the trappings of statehood while putting ZERO effort into actually building a state.
It is an interesting contrast to the Jewish experience, where, in the Mandate period, emphasis was placed on getting the country built (farms and trade networks, nascent industry, representative councils, etc) before independence. The Kurds have done something similar in northern Iraq.
Only the palis seem to think that the world has to not only recognize them, but also build their country for them. They are a nation of toddlers, with guns.
One can only guess which 'sports' they finance. How scary will it be when they have suicide bombers masquerading as athletes at world events.
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