Staying Real in Israel
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Don’t they have something more important to worry about, like maybe saving Greece or Spain from economic collapse?

Ramat Shlomo, Jerusalem

Besides, haven’t the French learned yet that Israel’s building of homes, communities, or even cities has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with peace or the lack thereof in the Middle East?

But I DO hate to see those Frenchmen so deeply concerned over anything…

France deeply concerned over Israeli settlements

France is deeply concerned about Israel’s authorization for the expansion of 2,000 settlement homes built on occupied Palestinian land in east Jerusalem, the Foreign Ministry said Monday

Reprinted from dailystar.com

“Our position is constant: Settlement building is illegal in the eyes of international law, in the West Bank as well as in East Jerusalem,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero.

Jerusalem’s municipal council Sunday approved the expansion of 2,000 homes in the settlement district of Ramat Shlomo, allowing each home to add a room. The Ramat Shlomo neighborhood lies in an area of Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel captured during the 1967 war and later annexed in a move not recognized by the international community.

France called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume peace talks based on proposals made by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe when he visited the region earlier this month.

“We call on the parties to resume negotiations based on principles contained in the French initiative … and to refrain from unilateral gestures,” Valero said.

So why does the Israeli Left, led by the media, continue to beat their breasts with “if only Yitzhak had been allowed to finish what he started”?

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It is the Zionistic Israeli political RIGHT that should be lamenting the death of Yitzhak Rabin at the hands of an assassin. All signs indicate that he was coming to his senses just before his death, that, in fact, he was quite ready to reject the failing Oslo Accords that had been forced upon him by his unscrupulous colleagues, Yossi Beilin, Shimon Peres and company.

Rabin was beginning to see through the duplicity of Yasser Arafat and realizing that the Oslo Interim Agreement was not working and, indeed, was very bad for Israel’s security.

In his last address to the Israelil Knesset, upon ratification of the Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement (Oslo Accords), he clearly stated his understanding of Israel’s position in the agreement:

1. No Palestinian state…ever
2. No return to the 1967 borders
3. Israeli control of the Jordan Valley
4. Gush Katif as the model in the establishment of Jewish settlement blocks in Judea, Samaria and Gaza
5. ALL settlements remain intact during the interim period, including building for natural growth
6. Responsibility for security along the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, airspace over all the territories and Gaza, and the Gaza Strip maritime zone remains in Israeli hands

Even Rabin’s own daughter admitted to her father’s dissatisfaction with Arafat and the Oslo Accords and was not at all surprised at a willingness on the part of Yitzhak Rabin to stop the whole Oslo process.

All this and more on “The Marty Roberts Show”…

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Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face…

Israel is probably the biggest employer of palestinian workers. They make MUCH more money when they work in Israel than if they work in their own towns and cities…that is, if they can find work at all anywhere but in Israel. Large numbers of terrorists that have killed and maimed Israelis were workers from the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas.

The world complains if Israel, because of the danger of terrorism, prevents the entry of palestinian workers. The Palestinian Authority complains that Israel is using palestinian workers to build Jewish homes.

So now they are going to ban the workers from working in certain parts of Israel.

I guess they figure they can plead poverty to the world and demand more international aid for their poor starving citizens. Your American/European tax dollars at work for you…Brilliant…

Palestinian Authority bans work in settlements

Palestinians must stop working in Jewish settlements by next year, a Palestinian cabinet minister said Tuesday, as part of a campaign to halt their expansion on occupied land Palestinians want for a state

Reprinted from Reuters.com

Economic Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh, disclosing further details of a new Palestinian law aimed at severing commercial ties with the settlements, said Palestinians violating the ban could face up to five years in jail and fines of up to $14,000.

“Those who are working in settlements are beefing up settlements, contributing heavily to the lifeline of settlements and therefore they deserve more punishment,” said Palestinian Economic Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh.

The penalties were not made public when President Mahmoud Abbas signed a law last month banning trade in goods made by Israelis living in some 100 settlements in the occupied West Bank and prohibiting Palestinian labor in them.

Since the Palestinians began the boycott campaign in January, the number of Palestinian workers in the enclave has dropped from 33,000 to 25,000, Abu Libdeh said.

Palestinians employed by settlements work in construction, agriculture and industry. Abu Libdeh said all must leave their jobs by 2010.

He said the Palestinian Authority would provide incentives to Palestinian firms to hire former settlement workers and that “encouraging responses” have already been received from various companies.

GOODS CONFISCATED

The Palestinian Authority hopes the campaign, which does not apply to goods made in Israel-proper — products vital to Palestinian consumers — will undermine settlement viability.

Since the start of the campaign, which Palestinians are encouraging European Union member states to join, some $200 million in settlement-produced goods have been confiscated in the West Bank, Abu Libdeh said.

The World Court has deemed illegal settlements Israel has built on land, including the West Bank, that it captured in a 1967 war.

Palestinian say the enclaves threaten creation of a viable state. Under U.S. pressure last November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu imposed a 10-month freeze in housing starts in West Bank settlements, a move Abbas called insufficient.

About half a million settlers live in settlements in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem alongside 2.5 million Palestinians. Another 1.5 million Palestinians live in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Abu Libdeh said Israel’s criticism of the boycott drive was not justified as the Palestinian Authority was not violating existing interim peace agreements.

“We are not conducting any act of incitement against anybody. We are trying to make sure that we, the Palestinians, are not at all part of the lifeline of settlements,” he said.

Settlers, Abu Libdeh said, had to be made to understand it was no longer economically viable or profitable for them to continue to live in the West Bank.

Some settlers claim a Biblical right to the West Bank, while others have been attracted by economic and tax incentives offered by the Israeli government.