Israel Objects to U.S. Construction Demands

[IndianaGreen]

Israel Objects to U.S. Construction Demands

By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: March 16, 2010

JERUSALEM — The discord between the United States and Israel over Jewish building in East Jerusalem deepened Tuesday with Israeli officials saying they would reject demands by Washington and expressing anger over the public upbraiding of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the Obama administration.

On a day of scattered disturbances by Palestinians in East Jerusalem, news emerged that Israel was moving ahead with a second building project there. A notice on the Web site of the Israel Lands Authority invited bids on construction of 309 new homes in the Jewish suburb of Neve Yaakov, in northeast Jerusalem.

A spokesman for the Jerusalem municipality said building and planning across the city were moving ahead. “For us, it is business as usual,” the spokesman, Stephan Miller, said.

In the disturbances, several hundred Palestinian youths protesting Israeli control and construction in East Jerusalem set tires and garbage ablaze. The police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. About 10 people were seriously injured and about 60 arrested, the police said.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem for their future capital.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/world/middleeast/17mideast.html?hp

If the Obama Administration intended to bring about a crack in Netanyahu's government, it has failed!

[DesertFlower]

1. i don't see any reason why jerusalem

cannot be split.

[IndianaGreen]

3. No government in Israel would ever agree to partition Jerusalem again!

Jerusalem is more than just a piece of real estate.

[DesertFlower]

5. because of what is said in the bible?

as an atheist i find the bible is just stories. if i were jewish or christian, i would probably feel differently.

that being said, i'm both pro israel and pro palestinian, but i'm giving up hope that there will ever be peace.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Because of what happened in 1948

Jordan did not allow Jews to enter and pray at the Western Wall. When Israel's armies entered East Jerusalem, General Moshe Dayan put a prayer on one of the cracks on the wall, and he said that Jerusalem will never be divided again.

[DesertFlower]

7. thank you. nt

[MUAD_DIB]

10. So based on the say-so of a former Israeli terrorist that gives

the right of Israel to annex East Jerusalem?

Were there any other proclamations on the Palestinians, By Dayan, that made the present Israeli apartheid state kosher?

[IndianaGreen]

13. There were Jews living in Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria 3,500 years ago

How can someone annex something that has always belonged to them?

[MUAD_DIB]

16. And that gives them the right to take what they want, right?

Unfortunately your argument doesn't hold water very well.

It's the same, tired argument that seems to keep floating up to the top in the Israel/Palestine forum.
"It was ours 3,500 years ago so screw you world, it' s still ours. Thanks for keeping our place in line. Now fuck off."

Really, I would expect more of a debate other than "We were there first, once."


One other thing. Your words: How can someone annex something that has always belonged to them?

So under that reasoning the Palestinians better pack up and bugger off. Right?

[IndianaGreen]

18. They are rioting in East Jerusalem on account on account of the Hurva synagogue

The Hurva, considered by some people to to be one of Judaism's most sacred sites, reopened for the first time in 62 years on Monday in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201031642239450987.html

Palestinians decry Hurva reconstruction

By Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

SIDON: Palestinian refugees in the south protested on Tuesday against Israel’s decision to rebuild the Hurva Synagogue near Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, and students from the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Sidon marched to show their anger.

Israel reopened the twice-destroyed Hurva Synagogue on Monday, sparking a wave of criticism and protests, both in Palestine and among refugee communities abroad.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=112837

Lost in all this misplaced anger is the fact that the Hurva was destroyed by Jordan's Arab Legion in 1948. What did I say about 1948 and why Jerusalem remaining undivided is a core issue to any Israeli government?

[oberliner]

20. How do you see this all shaking out?

You've talked about one state - what do you see unfolding over the next ten years, say?

[IndianaGreen]

21. Lost is on!

I'll be online tomorrow

[MUAD_DIB]

22. Well, you're definately there...lost.

[oberliner]

29. Enjoy the show!

Always eager to read your fascinating posts on here.

[IndianaGreen]

34. If we persist in the same behaviour as in the past 43 years, we will get the same results

American Presidents will come and go, each of them trying to put a check mark next to the Middle East box indicating they did their bid to achieve peace. Israeli governments will come and go, but settlements will continue to be build and expanded regardless of what happens. A succession of Palestinian leaders will come and go promising to deliver a Palestinian state, or the destruction of the Jewish one, while the Palestinian people remain "trapped in economic stagnation and Israeli control over factors of production," as reported by the Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center in its 2006 report (http://www.gpn.org/data/palestine/palestine-analysis.pdf).

Meanwhile in the unreal world that is DU's I/P forum, posters are expected to join either "Team Israel" or "Team Palestine" and to remain in an intellectual straight jacket in which no new ideas or approaches are to be considered, and where the airing of historical grievances is a sport. So much for DU!

Three things have become clear to me recently: first, Israel cannot remove the settlers from East Jerusalem and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), without triggering a major political and social upheaval, perhaps even a civil war. Second, no Israeli government can ever agree to divide up Jerusalem and survive. Third, there is already a one-state solution in place. For all practical purposes there is a sovereign state in Palestine, with the legal and actual power to exercise control over the people within its borders. That Palestinian state is Israel.

Once we accept publicly what is so self-evident, we can proceed with the undertaking of shepherding Israel towards a humane, fair, and just resolution of the Palestinian question. I posted in this forum not long ago that IMHO, there are only two paths that Israel could take. It can formally assimilate the Palestinians, granting them the full rights and privileges of Israeli citizenship, or it can repatriate them to Jordan or Egypt. The former path could lead the newly expanded Israeli-Arab population to one day gain power through the ballot box. Those of us that believe in democracy wouldn't have a problem with that. The latter path would have serious economic, political, and military repercussions for Israel.

I will now add that there is a third path or possibility. Israel could decide to seek some sort of a settlement with the Palestinians which would create autonomous regions which would exist within a federal democratic republic, similar to what we saw in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The bottom line is that our pursuit of a mythical 2-state solution has only resulted in 43 years of kabuki theatre that has drained Israelis and Palestinians emotionally, economically, and socially.

[truedelphi]

37. I was surprised to learn, probably more than a decade ago, that the

Moderates on both sides are always killed off.

The two more militant sides of the issue are always reigning supreme. And then we wonder why the area is such a bloody mess.

[IndianaGreen]

38. You can find the same thing in Latin American history

Moderates and liberals were always the targets of the entrenched interests, which only left the political extremes.

On edit:

Here is a good illustration of what I am talking about. Decades ago the Colombian guerrillas of FARC came down from the mountains after being promised that they wouldn't be harmed if they laid down their arms and participated in the political process. That didn't work! After a few of the FARC commanders were killed, FARC retreated into the mountains from which they came. A similar situation happened in the Philippines with NPA. After the Marcos dictatorship was toppled, the Aquino government gave NPA assurances similar to the ones FARC got in Colombia. NPA didn't wait around to see its top cadres meet an untimely death. They went back to the mountains within the month.

[MUAD_DIB]

23. So your response is to ignore the same question

that I have put to you twice now?

Your words, 3rd time: We give money to Saudi Arabia, while the Saudis fund terrorist schools that global network of Wahhabi schools that Saudi Arabia funds, are the same schools from which Taliban and jihadists everywhere are groomed.


Are not suggesting that Israel can accept US aid and get away with what it wants because Saudi Arabia is doing something just as bad then what did you mean by this statement?

Be specific. Cite examples.


Oh, sorry. Your Lost is on... :eyes:

[safeinOhio]

19. So you gonna

give your house back to the Native Americans?

[MUAD_DIB]

24. I always love that argument. If you ever took a look

at the ancient world then you would see that the land that Israel claims today was populated by other peoples as well as the Israelites.

[safeinOhio]

25. If you look at their genes

the Palestinians and Jews both came from those folks.

[MUAD_DIB]

26. Why wouldn't that part of the world show some genetic interrelation?

If you were to remove the religious aspect then what would be the difference between Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian or Lebanese?

[Dick Dastardly]

27. No, based on facts like

Jerusalem has been majority Jewish on and off over the last few millenia and has been so since 1850 to present.

Jerusalem was about 3/4ths Jewish in 1948 when E Jerusalem was ethnically cleansed of 100% of the Jews by the victorious Arab armies. The Jewish quarter of the old city as well as other Jewish areas and surrounding villages were bulldozed

In contrast to the religious freedom for all religions in Jerusalem under Israeli rule since 67. When the Arabs conquered E Jerusalem in 48 Jews were banned from going to their holy sites, Christians and other religions except Islam were also severely discriminated against. The Arabs also destroyed all the main synagogues and desecrated ancient Jewish holy sites, cemeteries etc etc. and did such things as use tombstones to floor their latrines.







Upon its capture, the Jordanians immediately expelled all the Jewish residents of the Jewish Quarter. All the main synagogues were destroyed, and the Jewish Quarter was bulldozed.<3> The ancient Jewish cemetery on Mount of Olives was desecrated, and the tombstones there were used for construction and paving roads.<3> Jordan also destroyed the Jewish villages of Atarot and Neve Yaakov just north of Jerusalem (their sites became Jerusalem neighborhoods after 1967).

East Jerusalem absorbed some of the refugees from West Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods that came under Israeli rule. Thousands of Arabs were settled in the previously Jewish areas of Jerusalem.<2>


Jews were not allowed access to the Mount of Olives, Western Wall and other holy sites, in contravention of the 1949 Armistice Agreements

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Jerusalem

[MUAD_DIB]

28. Ahhh, the tyranny of the majority.

So the majority gets to decide who lives in that area and who doesn't.

It is really great that you have to go back in history to justify the Israeli apartheid state of today. What I continue to see written is that "The Arabs got away with it so the Israelis should be able to as well."

Cherry picking what you want to accept as truth is not a valid argument for a couple of reasons.

If you credit a source don't forget that others can also check it.

From the wiki...

Jerusalem was designated an international city under the 1947 UN Partition Plan. It was not part of either the proposed Jewish or Arab states.

Since June 28, 1967, East Jerusalem has been under the law, jurisdiction, and administration of the State of Israel.<13> The right of Israel to declare sovereignty over the entirety of Jerusalem is not recognized by the international community, which regarded the move as de facto annexation <14> and deemed Israeli jurisdiction invalid in a subsequent non-binding United Nations General Assembly resolution.<15> However in a reply to the resolution, Israel denied that these measures constitute annexation.<16>

In the 1980 Basic Law, or "Jerusalem Law" Israel declared Jerusalem "complete and united", to be "the capital of Israel". The new law left the bounds of Jerusalem unspecified.<17> In response, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted the non-binding Resolution 478 (the U.S. abstained), declaring the law to be "null and void" and a violation of international law. Nevertheless, in 1988, Jordan, while rejecting Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem, withdrew all its claims to the West Bank (including East Jerusalem).

There are some things which are pretty clear.

1) Israel is in violation of international law.

2) There are those who mistakenly believe that: Israel wants it so Israel should be allowed to get it.

3) Israel continues to encroach on Palestinian lands.

3) Israel has no intention of ever letting the Palestinians have a homeland.


If the tables were turned and the Palestinians were the jailers of the Israelis then they would be just as unjustified and criminal in their actions.

[shaayecanaan]

35. Jesus, the hasbara have sure done a job on that article...

the destruction of the Jewish quarter is mentioned about three times (actually, only about a third of it was destroyed) - and the destruction of the Moroccan quarter by Israel (in which four people were crushed to death in their homes) is not mentioned once.

[MUAD_DIB]

9. Why don't you explain what it is in detail, and why the Israelis

have the right to push out the Palestinians.

[MUAD_DIB]

2. I guess that they wouldn't object to US aid going elsewhere.

[IndianaGreen]

4. We give money to Saudi Arabia, while the Saudis fund terrorist schools

That global network of Wahhabi schools that Saudi Arabia funds, are the same schools from which Taliban and jihadists everywhere are groomed.

[DesertFlower]

8. we also give money to the palestinians. nt

[MUAD_DIB]

11. So you agree that what israel is doing is wrong, but since the Saudis do it

then it is alright?

I have no problem shutting them all off. How about you?


You seem to be under some impression that Israeli might = right.


I'm sure that the massacred Palestinians in the last Israeli Gaza incursion would feel all warm about that.

[IndianaGreen]

12. Why do you come up with a strawman argument?

That's kinda intellectually dishonest on your part.

In a courtroom, it would be called leading the witness.

[MUAD_DIB]

14. It's not a strawman or dishonest, sweetheart. That's the subtext of your words.

Your words: We give money to Saudi Arabia,> while the Saudis fund terrorist schools that global network of Wahhabi schools< that Saudi Arabia funds, are the same schools from which Taliban and jihadists everywhere are groomed.

So I guess (and I have to bring it up again since you have tried to sidestep what you wrote) that since the Saudis do it then it is alright for Israel to do what it wants with impunity.


There is no dishonesty coming from me. The Israelis, as well as the Saudis, should be cut off or have their aid reduced for their continued bullshit. They should remain cut off until they start playing ball.


Or do you believe that they have a right to take US treasure while giving the USA the bird?

[IndianaGreen]

15. There is never any subtext to what I write

My words are what they are.

[MUAD_DIB]

17. Now that is disingenuous at best.

Care to go on, or are you in retreat now?

I'll try again.


Your words, once more: We give money to Saudi Arabia, while the Saudis fund terrorist schools that global network of Wahhabi schools that Saudi Arabia funds, are the same schools from which Taliban and jihadists everywhere are groomed.


Are not suggesting that Israel can accept US aid and get away with what it wants because Saudi Arabia is doing something just as bad then what did you mean by this statement?

Be specific. Cite examples.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

30. Are you sure the US gives money to SA?

I'm aware that the US does a great deal of business with SA, but "buying stuff from them" is hardly the same as "giving them money".

I don't believe the US gives any money at all to Saudia Arabia - as far as I can work out (I may be wrong) it gives somewhere between $300 and $1000 per capita to Israelis, about $70 per capita to Jordan, about $40 per capita to the Palestinians, $25ish per capita to Libya and Egypt, and not much more than $10 per capita to anywhere else each year.

[oberliner]

31. Yes, the US gives money to Saudi Arabia

In fact the request in aid to Saudi Arabia for 2009 was three times the amount spent in 2008.

The budget reports indicates that the funding is for military training and border control efforts to combat weapons smuggling.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

32. That's interesting. Any idea since when?

The figures I'm quoting are about 4 years old, I think - is this newer than that, did they just omit it, or was the amount of money given then small enough that it didn't make it onto a list of top recipients then, do you know?

[oberliner]

33. Here is the website where I got the information I posted

The numbers and details are in a PDF file that can be found here (under Near East):

http://www.state.gov/f/releases/iab/fy2009cbj/

It has info for FY 2007, 2008, and 2009.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

36. Thanks for the link.

Mine is from http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/politics/us-foreign-aid.htm which is a bit less up-to-date.

[oberliner]

39. I didn't see Iraq or Afghanistan on that list

I wonder if they are in a separate category all their own.