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MASKIOT, Palestinian Territory (AP) June 3 — Israel has begun laying the foundations for a Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank — breaking a promise to Washington while strengthening its hold on a stretch of desert it wants to keep as it draws its final borders.
The construction of Maskiot comes at a time when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seeks U.S. backing for eventually annexing parts of the West Bank as part of a plan to set Israel’s eastern border with or without Palestinian consent.
Palestinian families forced from their land to clear area for new Maskiot settlement.
The Palestinians and Israel’s settlement watchdog group Peace Now say the Maskiot construction amounts to a new attempt to push Israel’s future border deeper into the West Bank. “It’s about grabbing land,” said Yariv Oppenheimer of Peace Now.
To ensure a Jewish majority in lands it controls, Israel plans to evacuate as many as 70,000 West Bank settlers, moving them to the western side of the barrier. Israel depicts the move as a major concession, but Palestinians fear Jewish foot-holds like Maskiot will prevent them from being able to build a contiguous state on the evacuated lands.
Maskiot would initially house 20 families, all former Gaza settlers forced out of their homes when Israel withdrew from the coastal strip last year. Israel has promised Washington it would not build new settlements in the West Bank.
The future residents of Maskiot say their homes are being financed by right-leaning Jewish donors and the Israeli government, and that they will be renting homes built by others.
Asked about Maskiot, Stewart Tuttle, the U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv, said such settlement activity violates U.S. policy. “As a general principle, the U.S. government is opposed to settlement expansion,” Tuttle said.
At Maskiot, bulldozers have cleared the top of a hill and work crews have laid foundations for four houses. Trees have been planted on the edges of the settlement.
ARAD, West Bank (Globes Online) May 30 — Communications equipment giant Motorola Inc. is planning to set up another development center in Israel. Motorola executive VP chief strategy officer Richard N. Nottenberg today met Minister of Finance Avraham Hirchson. Sources inform ”Globes” that they agreed that Motorola would consider setting up the new center in the Jordan Valley.
The Ministry of Finance and Motorola reportedly agreed that the government would subsidize part of the salaries of the new center’s employees. Nottenberg said he would try to persuade other US companies to open R&D centers in Israel.
Motorola’s major Israeli operations are centered in Arad, located between Be’er Sheva and the Dead Sea, south of the Jordan Valley. The new center would include government subsidies in an effort to attract other companies to set up operations.
You won’t pick up on this news in the biased American media! It’s all about Iran and nuclear deterrent, possible first strike with mini nukes on Iranian nuclear sites.
JERUSALEM (AP) Feb. 3, 2006 — More than US$14 billion has been spent on Israel’s West Bank settlements over the past four decades according to a new study, one of the most comprehensive attempts to assess the total expenditures for the communities.
The study considered settlements to include suburbs of Jerusalem like Maaleh Adumim. (AP)
An exact figure for how much money has been spent on the settlements since Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 has been nearly impossible to obtain, since settlement spending is spread throughout numerous areas of the budget and not identified as specific funding for the settlements.
The Israeli Research Institute for Economic and Social Affairs, an independent body, resorted to retroactive cost estimates and aerial photography to come up with its figure. Other studies have come up with similar figures. In 2003, the Haaretz daily did a study of budgets and expenditures and determined that up to that date, Israel had spent $10.1 billion on the settlements.
● Bush and Olmert Choking Gaza & Palestinian Economy
● Economic Siege Imposed on the Palestinians
● Warren Buffett Invests $4bn In ME Peace Effort
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
This reminds me of something I was going to write to DTF. I’ve read a bit about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict recently. Mostly I ignored it my entire life. Tried to stay away from the topic. But read an interesting thing. About the history of the region. And the way it is misrepresented in U.S. media. The way Palestinians are always portrayed as bombing savages. And Israelis and enlightened defenders of their homeland. Never any context of the fact that the deaths are heavily slanted toward maximum Palestinian deaths. Never any context that the violence almost all takes place on Palestinian ground illegally occupied by Isreal. Never any context about the relative disparity of military might. Shepherds who’ve been cut off from most of the modern world versus the fourth most powerful military on the planet. If you just watch American TV, it is really hard to have any understanding about what is happening there. I’ve just begun to get some info. After 40 years. And only then by actively seeking it, and constantly filtering out the Israeli hype.
I am of the same position as you. I simply have had some trouble getting my arms around what is being said in this regard. This struggle for them is just an awful sort of living and has been now for going on 40 + years. Here again, we have an issue with leadership…things get better with good leadership and then backwards with the opposite in leadership. I just wished I had the magic to wave a wand and make the world a better place all around.
Thanks Oui, for all that you do for us here. hugs
I found Edward Said helpful for getting a Palestinian perspective. Too bad he passed away.
I’ve always wondered why it is that the victims – the largely powerless Palestinians – are the ones that are always told they have to show they are serious about peace. How does that make any sense? These people are in one of the poorest places in the world (by design, of course), they are cut off from their families and aren’t allowed to travel, they are often cut off from their own water and farmlands… and yet THEY are supposed to say, “Okay, we’re sorry. We won’t fight back any more.” That’s not a good answer to an abusive relationship, as it will almost always result in worse abuses. And Israel has certainly shown this to be the case. Maybe it’s time to ask the OPPRESSORS to do the right thing.
Those in power and with power are the ones that have the power to actually make change come about quickly.
So here’s another Israeli action against US policy that will most likely stand unchallenged. Shocking.
Thanks Oui, for the cite to the 14 bn figure.
From Alexander Cockburn’s latest, Palestine: It’s All Over:
Second the Edwaard Said reccommendation. Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chuzpah as well.
Sickening. Didn’t they just make a show of having to demolish settler’s homes for the sake of peace?
The powerful will do as they please and try to create the appearance of justice. Let the little people fall where they will. It’s such an ugly game.
Mr. Rickman, of course, is being diplomatic. For mainstream America, especially the political class, the line has long been drawn.
While it is debatable whether it could have been drawn so firmly as to count as a stone carving for political purposes without the very fortunate dovetail with deeply held religious beliefs of such a large number of devout American Christians, who are also very politically active, the fact is that such a convergence did and does exist, and this has been a great benefit to key US business interests. Israel does, after all, have the important job of guarding America’s oil in the region, at least until the area’s population can be reduced to a manageable level and permanent bases installed in those states on whom America’s will has not yet been completely imposed.
This is another example of a disconnect so wide as to be unbridgeable, between the unquestioned and unquestionable American doctrine and most of the rest of the world.
It is hard to imagine any anti-Semitism, any anti-Jewish sentiment more insidious, more loathsome, hard to conceive of a greater or more despicable insult to every Jew on earth, than to associate the US-funded atrocities and crimes against the Palestinian people with any ethnic or religious group.