Israel okays plan to pump funds into settlements

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent


The cabinet approved on Sunday a controversial plan to pump millions of shekels into West Bank settlements, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to review the list of communities for which funds were earmarked.

All of the ministers from the Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas parties voted in favor, following a five-hour debate on the matter at the weekly cabinet meeting; Labor's five ministers opposed.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the Labor chairman, attacked the plan during the discussion, warning that some of the money would end up in the hands of right-wing extremists.

"I don't think that we need to award them a prize in the form of including them in the national priority map," said Barak, referring to the plan.

The defense minister cited the desecration of a West Bank mosque on Friday as an example of the rightists' activity.

He added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's map of communities slated to receive state funds included a disproportional number of settlements.

Netanyahu's decision to review the move appeared to be a compromise on the matter. The plan sparked a barrage of criticism since the premier decided to implement the move despite a freeze on new construction in the territories.

The Labor ministers said Netanyahu had agreed to hold a cabinet discussion on the plan and to form a panel to examine which communities should be included.

At the start of Sunday's cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said: "The government wants to provide an answer to those who carry on a daily basis the economic and security burden."

Barak, however, stressed that, "The Israel Defense Forces ensures the security of Israelis everywhere; even though the security situation in Judea and Samaria is inestimably better today than in previous years.

read on...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1134699.html

[safeinOhio]

1. Another reason to reduce U.S. aid

Lets us our tax dollars to expand HC here, not settlements there.

[Owlet]

2. Basically giving Obama the finger. (N/T)

[LeftishBrit]

3. Agree with Barak; but he should never have agreed to join Nutty's coalition in the first place,

especially with Shas and Beteinu in it. Anyone might have known what would happen.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

5. Remind me what the difference is? Wasn't it the "moderate" party that murdered 300 kids in Gaza

last January?

[subsuelo]

6. The difference is in the approach

The goals are essentially the same.

[LeftishBrit]

7. To clarify....

I meant that I agreed with what he said on this occasion, not that I support him. If I lived in Israel, I would not vote for Kadima, or for Labor under Barak. I have had too much experience of hawkish so-called Labourites distorting and betraying their party ideals while they drag it to the Right and ultimately to the edge of destruction, in my own country, to be anything other than a total cynic on such points.

(I would vote for Meretz, and yes, I know that they are not popular at the moment.)

As regards what is the difference between Likud and Kadima: Kadima appearmore pragmatic, more swayable, to put it unkindly more like 'weathercocks' - which means that while one cannot rely on them, there is more hope for them compromising under the right circumstances. I think they would have been more prepared to co-operate with Obama. I could be wrong, of course.

[azurnoir]

4. So in reality the 10 month freeze

on construction in the settlements is really a "planning phase"?

[Scurrilous]

8. 'The Freeze' is just another scene in Israel's masquerade - Gideon Levy

<snip>

"Like every production, be it a flop or a hit, the future of this show will also be decided by the audience. In the meantime, as the first act shifts into high gear, the viewers are yawning.

The government and the settlers are proud to introduce "The Freeze," a show in which both sides play - in quite unconvincing fashion - already scripted parts.

During the first act, no real, historic edict has been issued. Rather, these decrees are just props. Thus, nobody will evacuate one balcony in the final scene.

The audience is skeptical. It does not believe the prime minister, who speaks of two states and in the same breath vows that the freeze will soon end, as if it were just a temporary shortage of construction materials that caused it.

He pledges that the freeze will not include pergolas and synagogues. Most importantly, he promises that construction will resume in full force immediately after the halt.

The audience is even more skeptical of the shrill, ludicrous performance displayed by the settlers, who are staging a bogus protest over the temporary freeze and sounding the manufactured cry of a bully playing the victim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the settlers do not mean what they say. They freeze and they wink, for the show must go on. The settlers, as is their wont, scream to the high heavens in order to sow fear and warn of what awaits us in the future.

Every local council chief in the territories who rips up the orders to freeze building in front of television cameras knows full well that these edicts were issued "as if." Meaning, as if there was a freeze, as if there were edicts, and as if there was resistance.

The inspectors apologize, the policemen push and shove a bit, but they also know the truth. The show must go on."

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