Five Members of US Congress Take Extreme Right-Wing Tour of West Bank Settlements

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"The Alternative Information Center has just posted a summary of a story that appeared in Hebrew last week on Arutz Sheva, the settler-affiliated media outlet:

Five US Congressional Representatives recently conducted a "precedent-setting and historic visit" to Israeli West Bank settlements.... The five Republican members of Congress conducted the "in-depth tour" in cooperation with the Ariel Development Fund and the Strategic Unit of the Samarian Regional Council.

The all-male delegation included Randy Forbes (Virginia), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Doug Lamborn (Colorado), John Fleming (Louisiana) and Jim Jordan (Ohio). Representative Lamborn is particularly influential as chairperson of both the Republican Israel Caucus and the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus.

During the tour the congressional representatives visited the Cross Samaria Road, the Barkan Industrial Zone, the settlement of Ariel, and participated in a formal reception in the Nablus-area settlement of Har Bracha.

Because the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has effectively crippled the Palestinian economy, some Palestinian construction workers turn to the settlements for employment. While this type of a system that turns a sector of society into underpaid workers with few options for survival is known as "structural violence," Ariel Mayor Ron Nahman calls it "coexistence."

While Israel considers its settlement enterprise legal, many members of the international community do not. Those who question the legal status of settlements point to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids occupying powers from transferring civilians to an occupied area."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mya-guarnieri/five-members-of-us-congre_b_1103803.html


Huckabee and Allen West to speak at Hebron Fund settlers gala in Queens

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/huckabee-and-allan-west-to-speak-at-rightwing-settlers-gala-in-queens.html

[Angry Dragon]

1. I guess as long as they have the problems solved in this country

they have plenty of time to help all the other countries of the world

[Scurrilous]

2. Santorum: ‘All The People Who Live In The West Bank Are Israelis’

<snip>

"In a recorded conversation during a Friday campaign stop in Iowa, former Republican senator Rick Santorum offered a surprisingly hawkish set of foreign policy views (even for Santorum) on both Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After telling a questioner that the U.S. should target Iranian nuclear scientists for assassination, the GOP presidential hopeful went on to say that “all the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis, they’re not Palestinians” and offered his endorsement of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.

Santorum even went so far as to compare Israeli annexation of the West Bank to the acquisition of Texas during the Mexican-American war:

QUESTIONER: Do you think Israel should dismantle its settlements?

SANTORUM: No. The West Bank, is this part of Israel?

QUESTIONER: According to 48? (inaudible)

SANTORUM: How did we get New Mexico and Texas?

QUESTIONER: Through war.

SANTORUM: How did they get the West Bank? (inaudible) Through a war. Should we give Texas back to Mexico?

QUESTIONER: Well I don’t think you should recognize recent annexations.

SANTORUM: Oh, so it depends whether it’s recent or not? So we should have given New Mexico and Texas back 150 years go?
(...)
The bottom line is that that is legitimately Israeli country. And they have a right to do within their country just like we have a right to do within our country. If they want to negotiate with Israelis, and all the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis, they’re not Palestinians. This is Israeli land.

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/11/21/373985/santorum-west-bank-israelis/