Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem Tuesday 18 August 2015 05.20 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 18 August 2015 05.24 EDT
Israel has resumed construction of a section of its controversial separation wall in the Cremisan valley near Bethlehem, despite a court appearing to rule against further work on the barrier in April.
The wall will separate the West Bank city of Beit Jala from the settlement of Har Gilo and the village of Walaja. Critics claim its real purpose is not to increase security but to allow settlement expansion.
Earth movers have started uprooting olive trees to break the ground for the wall. The planned route runs through the Cremisan valley on land owned by 58 Christian Palestinian families, close to a monastery and its sister convent and school.
The wall has been opposed by local Christian leaders and the Vatican. In April it appeared that its construction had been blocked when Israel’s high court ordered the defence ministry to reconsider the route. But a subsequent ruling in July gave it the green light.
Palestinian landowners argue it will separate them from their land. Initial plans would have separated the Salesian monastery from its sister convent and school. It now appears that the proposed wall will be built, except for a section around the buildings.
The renewed construction is only on the latest section of the wall, which Israel began building in 2002. It claims its purpose is to stop “terrorists”. Palestinian critics and others allege that the route allows for the effective annexation of Palestinian land.
It was clear for some time that the Israeli defence ministry had intended to push ahead with the plans. After the ruling in April, it sent a letter to a lawyer representing landowners stating that it intended to go ahead with construction, while leaving a gap near the monasteries.
Giat Nasser, a lawyer who represents the Beit Jala municipality and the landowners, told Haaretz: “They apparently haven’t reconciled themselves to the ruling. What they’re doing is ‘feeding’ the court, stage by stage. After they build the fence they’ll say it’s already up, then they’ll ask to build the loops around the monasteries, because there won’t be any choice.”
BETHLEHEM, Palestine, Aug 15 2015 (IPS) – The rubble of twisted concrete and metal bakes in the hot Mediterranean sun of a regional heat wave.
Eight months ago, the infrastructural devastation in the Gaza Strip was the same, except floodwater and freezing winter temperatures swept over the heaped remnants of people’s homes and businesses.
A year on from Israel’s 51-day military operation – in which over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, including more than 500 children – not a single one of the 11,000 destroyed homes has been rebuilt.
The task of large-scale reconstruction work was entrusted to the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM), a United Nations-brokered agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority which would oversee the distribution of building materials entering Gaza. “Most of the 100,000 Palestinians displaced by the [2014] war continue to live in makeshift shelters, often in the rubble of their former homes, and the landscape is littered with miles upon miles of apocalyptic decay where homes, shops, and restaurants once stood” To date, only 5.5 percent of the building materials needed to repair and rebuild homes and other damaged infrastructure has entered the coastal enclave, according to Israeli rights group Gisha, founded in 2005 to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especial Gaza residents.
The true sign of a racist or a racist society is the inability to show compassion or empathy with another human being because of their race, language or tribe. Israel under Likud is a racist apartheid state. How they got to be that way...
Deuce ☂Tue Aug 18, 11:26:00 AM EDT The true sign of a racist or a racist society is the inability to show compassion or empathy with another human being because of their race, language or tribe. Israel under Likud is a racist apartheid state. How they got to be that way…
SInce you have never actually been to Israel and seen it 1st hand you rely on enemies of the Jewish state for descriptions.
That says it all.
The enemies of the Jewish state are quite a handful.
From the Mullah's of Iran to the people who voted for Hamas.
Your adopted people, the Palestinians, are not a racist society?
Do they show compassion or empathy when the target restaurant with suicide bombers?
Your proclaiming Israel to be a racist apartheid state is pure bullcrap. But you are too ignorant to learn.
Gaza, ruled by Hamas is restocked with a fresh supply of rockets and missiles. They are bragging they are set and ready for another round against Israel. Attack tunnels are all rebuilt and stocked with ammo and supplies…
So when, not if, Hamas attacks Israel again?
Expect another round of gazans to be made homeless….
AS IF YOU NEEDED ANOTHER REASON TO TAKE A PASS ON ANOTHER BUSH
Jeb Bush on Friday identified Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq war, as one of his foreign-policy advisers.
The comment came as the former Florida governor was answering questions at the Iowa State Fair. The question wasn’t audible, but Bush’s reply was.
“Paul Wolfowitz is providing some advice,” he said. “I get most of my advice from a team we have in Miami, Fla.” Wolfowitz had been reported to have been an adviser to Bush, but this is believed to be the first time the Republican presidential candidate spelled that out.
Bush did explain the challenges he has in crafting his own reputation for foreign policy with the team of advisers he has.
“If they have any executive experience, they have had to deal with two Republican administrations,” he said. With a smile, he asked: “Who were the people that were presidents the last two Republican administrations?”
The last two Republican presidents were, of course, his brother George W. Bush and his father George H.W. Bush.
“This is a tough game for me to be playing,” Jeb Bush said.
There's one guy in this presidential race who wants to pursue a Mideast policy that could lead to the slaughter of thousands of Christians by Islamic radicals.
And there's another one who questions why the U.S. ever got involved there in the first place.
So why is Donald Trump considered the crazy one?
In that Aug. 6 debate and in interviews, Trump has made a point of noting that he was against the Iraq War before it was cool to say so. He likes to cite a 2004 Esquire article in which he asked "Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy?" after the U.S. left. He went on to predict that "the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over."
That pretty much describes ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Trump deserves credit for figuring out relatively early in the game that the George W. Bush administration strategy of removing secular dictators would end up empowering Islamic radicals.
That's obvious to any intelligent observer. So why hasn’t Jeb Bush figured it out even yet?
Deuce ☂Tue Aug 18, 11:26:00 AM EDT The true sign of a racist or a racist society is the inability to show compassion or empathy with another human being because of their race, language or tribe.
Sounds like you when you talk about Jews, GOP, Israelis and Zionists.
A religious cult that claims to be chosen by god is an absurdity. The same cult that uses the absurdity as an excuse and cover to practice ethnic cleansing has earned more than a mere slur.
The GOP Likuds Force and DC plutocrats know it is over:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the United States Congress would likely not muster the two-thirds majority needed to reject the recent accord over Iran’s nuclear program. To reject the agreement, a majority of Congress would need to vote against it, which is likely, and then garner a two-thirds majority to overcome President Obama’s promised veto of the initial rejection. To reach two-thirds, Republican majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate would need a handful of Democratic votes, something McConnell said is unlikely. “He can win by getting one-third plus one of either house,” McConnell said to a group in his home state of Kentucky, referring to Obama, according to the Associated Press. “So he’s still got a great likelihood of success.”
The U.S. government is trying to destroy Chelsea Manning.
Five years after the arrest of Manning, an Army private, for providing classified information to WikiLeaks, the government’s cruelty is taking another turn — part George Orwell, part Lewis Carroll. But Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning did not fall down the rabbit hole. She’s locked up at Fort Leavenworth, five years into a 35-year sentence — and the fact that she is not scheduled for release until 2045 isn’t enough of a punishment. Prison authorities are now brandishing petty and bizarre charges to threaten her with indefinite solitary confinement.
Why? The alleged transgressions include the possession of toothpaste past its expiration date and an issue of Vanity Fair with Caitlyn Jenner on the cover. Even if all the charges of minor violations of prison rules are found to be true at her closed hearing today, the threatened punishment is cruelly disproportionate.
As the conservative pundit George Will wrote more than two years ago, “Tens of thousands of American prison inmates are kept in prolonged solitary confinement that arguably constitutes torture.” In effect, the government is now threatening to torture Manning.
Chelsea Manning was operating for the edification of American citizens; Pollard was selling military secrets to foreign powers, including Israel and the Soviet Union..
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning[4] (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier who was convicted in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly three-quarters of a million classified or unclassified but sensitive military and diplomatic documents.
Manning was ultimately charged with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, which was the most serious charge and could have resulted in a death sentence
Deuce ☂Tue Aug 18, 01:11:00 PM EDT The GOP Likuds Force and DC plutocrats know it is over:
The GOP is in agreement with the vast majority of Jews in Israel and in America.
To infer somehow the GOP is in the pocket of a political party in Israel, to use the venom in your implication to turn the Likud party into somehow a nasty term? Is so very Rules for Radicals of you......
You try (and fail) to infer Zionist or Zionism are bad things.
Jewish self determination in their historic lands is not evil nor discriminatory.
Calling Israel a "racist apartheid state" under the Likud leadership may make you feel good, but it shows how ignorant and racist you are....
Israel is not a "racist apartheid state", and if really devalues what those terms mean. (not that you give a shit).
Your recent behavior here? Reminds me of a hysterical bitch that is not getting their way....
News flash Deuce.
Israel is a strong democracy for all it's citizens, jew, arab, druze and more.....
If it was 1/100th as bad as you claim?
No self respecting arab would stay, but they do....
the freest, safest arabs LIVE in Israel.
over a million of them...
Meanwhile in Gaza? Syria? Iraq? Yemen? They are butchered by their own and the Iranians...
“Jewish self determination in their historic lands is not evil nor discriminatory.” Taking someone else’s land because god told them to do it is not self-determination. It is a cultist taking and ethnic cleansing and oh yes, it is evil.
Iran – the land where some 700 souls were executed last year It's not surprising that hanging and beheading have become a grim feature of 'justice' in the Muslim world
The gallows stain Iran far more than the centrifuge. You can negotiate over a nuclear facility. You can’t reboot death. I’ve argued about this with an Iranian ambassador who is – or was – a friend of mine. How can Iran hang a woman when the world pleads for her life? Was it not for God to make decisions over life or death? There had to be temporal judgments, I was told. There had to be law. The laws of Islam, of course. I once even raised this question with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s demented then President, just after his re-election. In 2009, Delara Darabi – who was only 23 – was dragged to the gallows, screaming to her mother on her mobile phone: “Oh mother, I can see the hangman’s nose in front of me. They are going to execute me. Please save me.” Delara had falsely confessed to killing her father’s cousin to save her boyfriend from the hangman. As the poor girl was strung up, her male executioner grabbed her phone and sneered to her mother that nothing could save her daughter now. Could Ahmadinejad promise that this atrocity would never happen again, I asked the crackpot leader of Iran?
Iran, an example of Deuce's favorite nation prototype that is not a racist apartheid state…
Recognition and objection to the war crimes of Israel stemming from the brutal occupation and oppression of Palestinians on their own lands and the savage and repetitive bombardments of the captive and defenseless Gazans is not anti-semitism. It is human decency. Israel and its supporters attempt to buy protection by any scurrilous means possible, acts abhorrent to free speech.
The Palestinians savage and repetitive bombardments of the civilians of Israel is anti-Semitism.
Hamas, an elected government of the Gaza Strip, that is a partner with the PA in the Unity Government is directly responsible for all the death and destruction that occurs within it's borders.
Gazans are not defenseless.
They started multiple wars.
and lost.
You stand with terrorism and terrorists that clearly state their goal is the genocide of the Jews.
Hamas, an elected government of the Gaza Strip, that is a partner with the PA in the Unity Government is directly responsible for all the death and destruction that occurs within it's borders.
The only borders Gaza has are the fences and walls put up by Israel as well as their blockaded shoreline. What don't you get about the word 'occupied'?
August 18, 2015 Senior Iranian official declares that it holds right of approval over any nuclear inspectors By Thomas Lifson
The assurances President Obama and John Kerry offered on tough inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities have crumbled into meaninglessness. First, the “anytime, anywhere” slogan fell to only the sites the Iranians approve, and 24 days’ notice. Now, with the latest statement out of Tehran, it is apparent that even those late, limited inspections will be a joke. Adam Kredo of the Free Beacon reports:
Sayyed Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and one of the top negotiators in talks that led to the recently inked nuclear deal, told the country’s state-controlled press that Iran’s intelligence apparatus must approve of any inspector who is issued a visa to enter Iran.
As Paul Mirengoff points out, we have no way of knowing if this is part of the deal agreed to by the Obama administration, because we aren’t allowed to see that deal. And it hardly matters, because the Iranians control access to their country, so what they say the deal is, is all that matters.
Now, what kind of Senator or Representative would be willing to endorse a deal in which the object of suspicion gets to delay inspections and holds the right of approval over any inspectors? If they think that’s OK for Iran, which threatens us with nuclear weapons and ICBMs in ten years or so, how about we use that same system for the IRS? If we had the right of approval for the IRS auditors who inspect our tax returns, who would bother to pay taxes?
In an Associated Press interview Tuesday, Amano said Iran specifically agreed to implement what’s known as the agency’s “Additional Protocol” when it agreed to the outlines of the deal now being worked on.
The protocol would allow the Vienna-based agency’s inspectors much more access than they have now to follow up on suspicions of undeclared Iranian nuclear activities or equipment.
The United States and Russia are among the 147 countries with additional protocols, although the US and some others have provisions designed to ensure that inspections do not compromise national security, something Iran also demands. Still, Amano said the same rules will apply to Iran as to the others that have signed on.
As for Iran's control over which inspectors can be involved, they have indicated that visas will only be issued to countries that they have diplomatic relations with. The US broke off diplomatic and consular services with Iran 35 years ago.
The United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 after a group of revolutionary Iranian students, angered that the deposed Shah has been allowed to enter the United States, seized the U.S. Embassy Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage. The U.S. Government does not have diplomatic relations with Iran.
So Iran invaded America territory, an act of war…
And America broke off diplomatic relations.
But let's trust Iran and sign an agreement with them..
From January 1 to August 18, Israel demolished 331 Palestinian structures in Area C (not including East Jerusalem) and 457 people, including 263 children, lost the roofs over their heads, according to data from the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and B’Tselem.
The buildings that were demolished were simple and meager, unlinked to water and electricity networks. The communities are geographically distant, primarily from the attention and consideration of most of the Israeli public, which apparently makes do with the usual statement by the spokesman of the Civil Adminstration and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories that the buildings were constructed without permits and they were simply enforcing the law.
What is happening is not law enforcement, but just the opposite. It’s a crude violation of the principles of justice and of international law, which requires the occupying military force to respect the rights of the native occupied population to housing and a livelihood, and prohibits its forcible removal.
The buildings were constructed without a permit, because Israel has refused and still refuses to prepare a master plan for the Palestinian communities living in what is today defined as Area C. The purpose of the ongoing demolitions is transparent: To pressure the Bedouin into agreeing to plans that would concentrate them in permanent towns, and to evict them and the rest of the Palestinians from Area C to Areas A and B, which are under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
In that way, more and more space will be available for the construction and expansion of settlements. And, when the time comes, Israel will be able to say that because so few Palestinians live in about 60 percent of the West Bank and there are so many Israelis, it has a right to annex the territory.
If you don't see the difference between the US then you just don't get it.
The difference is that the US doesn't deny what it is and how it got there. Israel has been promoting a big lie for the last 45 plus years.
It's the hypocrisy, stupid. We all know Israel has no plans for giving back the Palestinian territories. The so-called peace talks are merely a giant never ending kabuki as Israel continues to build facts on the ground with walls and settlements.
Israel has never offered the Palestinians a state. A state isn't denied an army to protect itself. A state doesn't have to agree to have an uninvited foreign army camped on its land indefinitely. A reasonable demand of any new state is that it recognize the right of its neighbors to exist. The PA has done that. It is unreasonable to ask that a state go further and 'approve' of the current governing structure of neighboring states into perpetuity since that's a matter that needs to be determined by the citizens of those states.
This is all evident to anyone who looks. Why doesn't Israel merely state their true intentions so that we can move on without the bull?
Sorry Quirk, Jews have lived in the area called israel for 3000 years.
That is the difference.
Most of the so called palestinians are immigrants to the specific area, most migrated TOO the Israel area after the Ottoman Empire fell.
To deny Jews, even from the middle east, their equal rights of statehood shows your bias.
The Big Lie? That is that there ever was a "Palestinian" people any different than the local arabs that are spread across several states.
The UN has offered the newly minted arabs called palestinians a state in 1948 and was turned down.
Israel has made several offers and it's been turned down.
As for your caveats about a state?
Are you making up qualifiers as you go?
The PA JOINED Hamas in a UNITY government, it has made null and void any and all agreements made in the past.
What is happening today in the arab world reflects the position of Israel's policy, there is no responsible stable government of the Palestinians in which to make any agreement with.
Please climb off your high horse and get to the ground to see the reality.
The arab world (collectively) is unstable and has NOTHING to do with Israel.
Israel's true intention? SURVIVE in a sea of savages.
Egypt has engaged in a broad-scope campaign to clear the border area completely of any structures as part of its preparations to implement a 500-meter (550-yard) buffer zone along Egypt’s 13-kilometer (8-mile) border with Gaza. This includes the destruction of the vast network of tunnels running from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai Peninsula.
The tunnels are used for smuggling anything from cigarettes to cars, and they are a source of revenue for the Hamas regime. However, they are also used for terror and weapons smuggling.
Ma’an previously reported that Egyptian troops had demolished some 800 houses in the area, erasing entire neighborhoods in the process.
Egypt’s operation continues uncontested by the world
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over 500.000 homeless
JOHANNESBURG, June 30 - The Zimbabwe police finished demolishing a squatter camp outside Harare that once had at least 10,000 residents on Thursday, killing as many as four people, a day after a United Nations envoy met with President Robert G. Mugabe to discuss the refugee crisis that similar mass evictions have set off.
After three days of work, the police destroyed and burned the remains of the Porta Farm settlement, about 12 miles west of Harare, the capital. Mr. Mugabe's government established the camp more than a decade ago for homeless peasants who had migrated to the city seeking work.
Human rights and charitable groups said that two women had died in the demolition, but accounts of the circumstances conflicted. Amnesty International said the women fell from trucks taking evicted residents to tent camps. Another aid group said one of the women died from exposure. One or two children also were reported to have died, from exposure or after being hit by a truck.
The operation continued as Mr. Mugabe met Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, a United Nations special envoy sent to assess the impact of the mass evictions, which have left as many as half a million people homeless since the government began razing homes and flea markets in mid-May.
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SOCHI RESIDENTS THROWN OUT OF HOMES FOR 2014 WINTER OLYMPICS
Russian President Vladimir Putin has another problem on his hands with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Word is spreading that many people lost their homes for the games and received next to nothing in compensation.
I wrote Monday about the strange phenomenon of Republicans lining up to propose cuts to Social Security, a deeply unpopular policy that is, however, also a really bad idea. How unpopular? Lee Drutman has the data: only 6 percent of American voters support Social Security cuts, while a majority want it increased. I argued that this apparent act of political self-destructiveness probably reflected an attempt to curry favor with wealthy donors, who are very much at odds with the general public on this issue:
Excellent Graph
Now we have another example: Marco Rubio has announced his health care plan, and it involves (a) greatly shrinking the tax deductibility of employer health benefits and (b) turning Medicare into a voucher system. Part (a) is favored by many economists, although I would argue wrongly, but would be deeply unpopular; part (b) is really terrible policy — proposed precisely at the moment when Medicare is showing that it can control costs better than private insurers! — and also deeply unpopular.
The strategy here, surely, is to propose things that voters would hate if they understood what was on the table, but hope that Fox News plus “views on shape of planet differ” reporting elsewhere will keep them confused, while at the same time pleasing mega-donors. It might even work, especially if Trump can be pushed out of the picture and the Hillary-hatred of reporters overcomes professional scruples. But it’s still amazing to watch.
The trouble with cuts proposed by the GOP is that they target the wrong people.
If we can move to a more simplified tax code, I wouldn't object to cutting some deductions. The problem of course is that those pushing for a simplified code only suggest the cuts they want. They push a cut to the health care deduction which would be regressive. They object to cuts in the home mortgage interest which would be more progressive. They push for making the retirement age for social security older which is regressive but refuse to consider upping or eliminating the ceiling on SS earnings which would be progressive.
. Sorry Quirk, Jews have lived in the area called israel for 3000 years.
I don’t doubt it. My point is simply, so what?
You seem to think that world history started when Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees took a walkabout and ended up in Egypt and that it was locked in place when the Jews conquered the city of Jebus from the Jebusites. But it just doesn’t work that way.
Archaeology tells us that there were settlements on the current site of Jerusalem 6500 years ago. Egyptian texts 4000 years ago talk of the city Rusalimum on the site. It was around 1000 B.C. that the Jews conquered the city of Jebus from the Jebusites. Over its history, the site and the cities on it have been attacked, destroyed, and conquered and reconquered numerous times.
As for Israel, the Jews moved in and conquered the land from the resident Canaanites. It was an area of conflict before and after this happened. After Jerusalem was built the land was controlled by various groups, countries, empires, and principalities, the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Israelis, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Seleucids, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Parthians, the Romans and Byzantines, the Arab Caliphate, the Crusaders, Saladin and the boys, the Mongols, the Ottomans, the Brits.
The resident population in the area at the time of the mandate were probably a conglomeration of the blood lines from all of these people and they had as much right as any Jew to claim the area as their ‘historical homeland’ too and probably more of a right than those who migrated to the area during the 20th century.
In 1267, Nachmanides migrated from Spain to Jerusalem. He indicated that at that time there were 2 Jews left in the city, two brothers who were dyers. That is why I joke about your comments and suggest those you talk about are like the designated guy who saves everybody else’s place in line at Best Buy on Black Friday.
Let’s forget the ancient history and try to restrict the conversation to the last century or so. .
. Most of the so called palestinians are immigrants to the specific area, most migrated TOO the Israel area after the Ottoman Empire fell.
So did most Jews. In 1922, the Jews in Palestine represented 11% of the total population. Your argument is specious.
As for your caveats about a state?
Are you making up qualifiers as you go?
:0)
Funny, it seems that the Likud government is the one making up new qualifiers. It seem ‘recognition of a Jewish State’ only showed up as a demand in 2007.
. The PA JOINED Hamas in a UNITY government, it has made null and void any and all agreements made in the past.
:0)
Again, quite humorous.
As the so-called ‘peace process’ was falling apart last year, Bibi tried to blame it on the Palestinians, whining for a couple months that he wasn’t able to negotiate a deal because the PA couldn’t speak for all the Palestinian including those in Gaza. Then when the PA and Hamas formed a ‘unity government’ Bibi went batshit crazy and tried everything he could to destroy the deal. We saw the end result.
The PA JOINED Hamas in a UNITY government…
No the PA didn’t join Hamas in a UNITY government. Hamas joined the PA in a UNITY government. And if you don’t understand the difference let me explain.
Hamas was dead in the water. Their popularity in Gaza was at a low point. They were about bankrupt. They were being ignored in the ‘peace process.’ They were on the outs with Iran because of their position on Assad. They were hurting. So they capitulated to the PA leadership. They agreed that PA operatives would take over key positions in the administration of Gaza. They reportedly agreed to abide by the PA’s charter and positions which presumably includes the PA position recognizing Israel’s right to exist.
No wonder Bibi went nutz, another excuse shot all to hell.
Deez Nuts is polling at 9% in North Carolina, leading most GOP presidential candidates—not joking
From PPP:
Finally another declared independent candidate, Deez Nuts, polls at 9% in North Carolina to go along with his 8% in Minnesota and 7% in Iowa in our recent polling. Trump leads Clinton 40/38 when he's in the mix.
BULLDOZEN CHOSEN UPDATE:
ReplyDeletePeter Beaumont in Jerusalem
Tuesday 18 August 2015 05.20 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 18 August 2015 05.24 EDT
Israel has resumed construction of a section of its controversial separation wall in the Cremisan valley near Bethlehem, despite a court appearing to rule against further work on the barrier in April.
The wall will separate the West Bank city of Beit Jala from the settlement of Har Gilo and the village of Walaja. Critics claim its real purpose is not to increase security but to allow settlement expansion.
Earth movers have started uprooting olive trees to break the ground for the wall. The planned route runs through the Cremisan valley on land owned by 58 Christian Palestinian families, close to a monastery and its sister convent and school.
The wall has been opposed by local Christian leaders and the Vatican. In April it appeared that its construction had been blocked when Israel’s high court ordered the defence ministry to reconsider the route. But a subsequent ruling in July gave it the green light.
Palestinian landowners argue it will separate them from their land. Initial plans would have separated the Salesian monastery from its sister convent and school. It now appears that the proposed wall will be built, except for a section around the buildings.
The renewed construction is only on the latest section of the wall, which Israel began building in 2002. It claims its purpose is to stop “terrorists”. Palestinian critics and others allege that the route allows for the effective annexation of Palestinian land.
It was clear for some time that the Israeli defence ministry had intended to push ahead with the plans. After the ruling in April, it sent a letter to a lawyer representing landowners stating that it intended to go ahead with construction, while leaving a gap near the monasteries.
Giat Nasser, a lawyer who represents the Beit Jala municipality and the landowners, told Haaretz: “They apparently haven’t reconciled themselves to the ruling. What they’re doing is ‘feeding’ the court, stage by stage. After they build the fence they’ll say it’s already up, then they’ll ask to build the loops around the monasteries, because there won’t be any choice.”
Wall can be torn down if and when peace is achieved.
ReplyDeleteDead Israeli children cannot be reconstituted that are murdered by Palestinian snipers.
Dont like a wall? Don't murder....
Awww, the children:
Delete133 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 2,061 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.
I know deuce, sorry the Jews don't use their babies as human shield and build bomb shelters…
Deleteoh, and lets not forget the Jews built hospitals instead of terror tunnels.
Now according to Hamas every jew is worth 1000 palestinians…
so according to your math?
another 130,000 palestinian kids need to die to be an equal number…
but not to worry, Israel and the Jews are not like your peeps…
Deuce ☂Tue Aug 18, 11:28:00 AM EDT
DeleteAwww, the children:
133 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 2,061 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.
Since 1948 3,000,000 jewish kids have been killed by pro-hitler peoples….
Nonsense, that would be 44,776 a year. Total hysterical rubbish.
DeleteSPEAKING OF MURDER
ReplyDeleteBETHLEHEM, Palestine, Aug 15 2015 (IPS) – The rubble of twisted concrete and metal bakes in the hot Mediterranean sun of a regional heat wave.
Eight months ago, the infrastructural devastation in the Gaza Strip was the same, except floodwater and freezing winter temperatures swept over the heaped remnants of people’s homes and businesses.
A year on from Israel’s 51-day military operation – in which over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, including more than 500 children – not a single one of the 11,000 destroyed homes has been rebuilt.
The task of large-scale reconstruction work was entrusted to the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM), a United Nations-brokered agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority which would oversee the distribution of building materials entering Gaza.
“Most of the 100,000 Palestinians displaced by the [2014] war continue to live in makeshift shelters, often in the rubble of their former homes, and the landscape is littered with miles upon miles of apocalyptic decay where homes, shops, and restaurants once stood”
To date, only 5.5 percent of the building materials needed to repair and rebuild homes and other damaged infrastructure has entered the coastal enclave, according to Israeli rights group Gisha, founded in 2005 to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especial Gaza residents.
Now, comes Winter.
DeleteI've read that most child abusers were abused as children. I guess it, sometimes, works the same way with "Nations."
The true sign of a racist or a racist society is the inability to show compassion or empathy with another human being because of their race, language or tribe. Israel under Likud is a racist apartheid state. How they got to be that way...
DeleteDeuce ☂Tue Aug 18, 11:26:00 AM EDT
DeleteThe true sign of a racist or a racist society is the inability to show compassion or empathy with another human being because of their race, language or tribe. Israel under Likud is a racist apartheid state. How they got to be that way…
SInce you have never actually been to Israel and seen it 1st hand you rely on enemies of the Jewish state for descriptions.
That says it all.
The enemies of the Jewish state are quite a handful.
From the Mullah's of Iran to the people who voted for Hamas.
Your adopted people, the Palestinians, are not a racist society?
Do they show compassion or empathy when the target restaurant with suicide bombers?
Your proclaiming Israel to be a racist apartheid state is pure bullcrap. But you are too ignorant to learn.
Gaza is controlled by Hamas.
DeleteIt has enough resources to rebuild it's tunnels, maybe they are keeping their people in squalor on purpose?
The good news?
DeleteGaza, ruled by Hamas is restocked with a fresh supply of rockets and missiles. They are bragging they are set and ready for another round against Israel. Attack tunnels are all rebuilt and stocked with ammo and supplies…
So when, not if, Hamas attacks Israel again?
Expect another round of gazans to be made homeless….
ANd hamas will claim victory!!!
again.
AS IF YOU NEEDED ANOTHER REASON TO TAKE A PASS ON ANOTHER BUSH
ReplyDeleteJeb Bush on Friday identified Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq war, as one of his foreign-policy advisers.
The comment came as the former Florida governor was answering questions at the Iowa State Fair. The question wasn’t audible, but Bush’s reply was.
“Paul Wolfowitz is providing some advice,” he said. “I get most of my advice from a team we have in Miami, Fla.” Wolfowitz had been reported to have been an adviser to Bush, but this is believed to be the first time the Republican presidential candidate spelled that out.
Bush did explain the challenges he has in crafting his own reputation for foreign policy with the team of advisers he has.
“If they have any executive experience, they have had to deal with two Republican administrations,” he said. With a smile, he asked: “Who were the people that were presidents the last two Republican administrations?”
The last two Republican presidents were, of course, his brother George W. Bush and his father George H.W. Bush.
“This is a tough game for me to be playing,” Jeb Bush said.
SPEAKING OF GOOD OLD JEB
ReplyDeleteThere's one guy in this presidential race who wants to pursue a Mideast policy that could lead to the slaughter of thousands of Christians by Islamic radicals.
And there's another one who questions why the U.S. ever got involved there in the first place.
So why is Donald Trump considered the crazy one?
In that Aug. 6 debate and in interviews, Trump has made a point of noting that he was against the Iraq War before it was cool to say so. He likes to cite a 2004 Esquire article in which he asked "Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy?" after the U.S. left. He went on to predict that "the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over."
That pretty much describes ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Trump deserves credit for figuring out relatively early in the game that the George W. Bush administration strategy of removing secular dictators would end up empowering Islamic radicals.
That's obvious to any intelligent observer. So why hasn’t Jeb Bush figured it out even yet?
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/08/next_to_jeb_bush_donald_trump_sounds_positively_sa.html
But, Trump still wants to go back and "take the oil."
DeleteDeuce ☂Tue Aug 18, 11:26:00 AM EDT
ReplyDeleteThe true sign of a racist or a racist society is the inability to show compassion or empathy with another human being because of their race, language or tribe.
Sounds like you when you talk about Jews, GOP, Israelis and Zionists.
I don’t talk about Jews and how they differ from other human beings. That is your gig.
DeleteZionism is religious rot.
GOP politics.
Israelis geography and nationalism.
Sure you do Deuce, you just can't bring yourself to be honest…
Delete"chosen" slurs are just one example of the slurs you aim at JEWS on a weekly if not more often basis.
A religious cult that claims to be chosen by god is an absurdity. The same cult that uses the absurdity as an excuse and cover to practice ethnic cleansing has earned more than a mere slur.
DeleteThe GOP Likuds Force and DC plutocrats know it is over:
ReplyDeleteSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the United States Congress would likely not muster the two-thirds majority needed to reject the recent accord over Iran’s nuclear program.
To reject the agreement, a majority of Congress would need to vote against it, which is likely, and then garner a two-thirds majority to overcome President Obama’s promised veto of the initial rejection. To reach two-thirds, Republican majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate would need a handful of Democratic votes, something McConnell said is unlikely.
“He can win by getting one-third plus one of either house,” McConnell said to a group in his home state of Kentucky, referring to Obama, according to the Associated Press. “So he’s still got a great likelihood of success.”
Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/319354/mitch-mcconnell-admits-iran-deal-will-likely-pass/#ixzz3jBgsPs9P
The US Gulag
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. government is trying to destroy Chelsea Manning.
Five years after the arrest of Manning, an Army private, for providing classified information to WikiLeaks, the government’s cruelty is taking another turn — part George Orwell, part Lewis Carroll. But Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning did not fall down the rabbit hole. She’s locked up at Fort Leavenworth, five years into a 35-year sentence — and the fact that she is not scheduled for release until 2045 isn’t enough of a punishment. Prison authorities are now brandishing petty and bizarre charges to threaten her with indefinite solitary confinement.
Why? The alleged transgressions include the possession of toothpaste past its expiration date and an issue of Vanity Fair with Caitlyn Jenner on the cover. Even if all the charges of minor violations of prison rules are found to be true at her closed hearing today, the threatened punishment is cruelly disproportionate.
As the conservative pundit George Will wrote more than two years ago, “Tens of thousands of American prison inmates are kept in prolonged solitary confinement that arguably constitutes torture.” In effect, the government is now threatening to torture Manning.
Interesting reaction…
ReplyDeleteWhen it came to Pollard you are a hard ass…
But some how a transgendered spy is your cup of tea?
Chelsea Manning was operating for the edification of American citizens; Pollard was selling military secrets to foreign powers, including Israel and the Soviet Union..
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteManning is an American-firster
ReplyDeleteSpy is a spy…
DeleteManning is a traitor.
Deletebut go ahead and defend him/her
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning[4] (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier who was convicted in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly three-quarters of a million classified or unclassified but sensitive military and diplomatic documents.
Delete725,000 DOCUMENTS…..
LOL
America Firster my ass...
Manning was ultimately charged with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, which was the most serious charge and could have resulted in a death sentence
DeleteThis is Rufus's kind of woman.
Manning might have been a spy, but he was MY spy.
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't Israel/Russia's spy.
NO, he was a traitor to the USA.
DeletePollard and He were BOTH Americans.
Unless of course, the fact that Pollard is a JEW makes the difference (AGAIN)
DeleteOne standard for Jews, none for anyone else?
Deuce ☂Tue Aug 18, 01:11:00 PM EDT
ReplyDeleteThe GOP Likuds Force and DC plutocrats know it is over:
The GOP is in agreement with the vast majority of Jews in Israel and in America.
To infer somehow the GOP is in the pocket of a political party in Israel, to use the venom in your implication to turn the Likud party into somehow a nasty term? Is so very Rules for Radicals of you......
You try (and fail) to infer Zionist or Zionism are bad things.
Jewish self determination in their historic lands is not evil nor discriminatory.
Calling Israel a "racist apartheid state" under the Likud leadership may make you feel good, but it shows how ignorant and racist you are....
Israel is not a "racist apartheid state", and if really devalues what those terms mean. (not that you give a shit).
Your recent behavior here? Reminds me of a hysterical bitch that is not getting their way....
News flash Deuce.
Israel is a strong democracy for all it's citizens, jew, arab, druze and more.....
If it was 1/100th as bad as you claim?
No self respecting arab would stay, but they do....
the freest, safest arabs LIVE in Israel.
over a million of them...
Meanwhile in Gaza? Syria? Iraq? Yemen? They are butchered by their own and the Iranians...
:)
Not that I give a flying fuck.....
“Jewish self determination in their historic lands is not evil nor discriminatory.”
DeleteTaking someone else’s land because god told them to do it is not self-determination. It is a cultist taking and ethnic cleansing and oh yes, it is evil.
Iran – the land where some 700 souls were executed last year
ReplyDeleteIt's not surprising that hanging and beheading have become a grim feature of 'justice' in the Muslim world
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/robert-fisk-iran--where-some-700-souls-were-executed-last-year-10411901.html
ROBERT FISK
Thursday 23 July 2015
The gallows stain Iran far more than the centrifuge. You can negotiate over a nuclear facility. You can’t reboot death. I’ve argued about this with an Iranian ambassador who is – or was – a friend of mine. How can Iran hang a woman when the world pleads for her life? Was it not for God to make decisions over life or death? There had to be temporal judgments, I was told. There had to be law. The laws of Islam, of course.
I once even raised this question with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s demented then President, just after his re-election. In 2009, Delara Darabi – who was only 23 – was dragged to the gallows, screaming to her mother on her mobile phone: “Oh mother, I can see the hangman’s nose in front of me. They are going to execute me. Please save me.” Delara had falsely confessed to killing her father’s cousin to save her boyfriend from the hangman. As the poor girl was strung up, her male executioner grabbed her phone and sneered to her mother that nothing could save her daughter now. Could Ahmadinejad promise that this atrocity would never happen again, I asked the crackpot leader of Iran?
Iran, an example of Deuce's favorite nation prototype that is not a racist apartheid state…
LOL
Deuce ☂Tue Aug 18, 10:38:00 AM EDT
ReplyDeleteSPEAKING OF MURDER
BETHLEHEM, Palestine
????
Wow, so THEY have a NATION?
I guess then the rules of war apply…….
When will the leaders of the palestinians be sent to the Hague?
.
DeleteNo, the rules of occupation apply.
.
The disputed lands of the west bank and gaza are not a party to the geneva conventions..
Deletesorry quirk.
there is no historic nation of Palestine.
As for the leaders of the palestinians? terrorists, not from a distant past, but today....
Your butt buddies I guess.. Now that you are a lover of Jihad.
I only hope your daughters marry them.
No they had a nation, your Eastern European team took it.
ReplyDelete"God" told'em to do it.
Delete"Promised" them the land; wrote it down right there in the Book.
DeleteHe wrote a lot of books (when he wasn't setting bushes on fire, starting floods, and shit.)
DeleteHe wrote one for the Muzzies; of course, he distributed his real estate a little differently in the Muslim "Book."
You forgot 2 things.
DeleteMORE Jews were expelled from the arab occupied lands than the arabs from the river to the sea,
and.
The arabs NEVER had a nation in the lands of Palestine.
as for the Promised land crack?
Everyone is entitled to their own lands..
the arabs? they occupy 899/900 of the lands
the jews? they occupy 1/900th of the lands and share it with 1.2 million arabs...
so much for equality....
the arabs and jews are 2 sons of abraham.
so the lands should be split 50/50...
as for Rufus's point?
You live in America, what right do you have to occupy this land?
.
Deletethe arabs and jews are 2 sons of abraham.
so the lands should be split 50/50...
You are a hoot.
.
And you are a fool
DeleteRecognition and objection to the war crimes of Israel stemming from the brutal occupation and oppression of Palestinians on their own lands and the savage and repetitive bombardments of the captive and defenseless Gazans is not anti-semitism. It is human decency. Israel and its supporters attempt to buy protection by any scurrilous means possible, acts abhorrent to free speech.
ReplyDeletePraise to those who stand up for justice.
Do you apply this standard to all or JUST Israel?
DeleteThe Palestinians savage and repetitive bombardments of the civilians of Israel is anti-Semitism.
DeleteHamas, an elected government of the Gaza Strip, that is a partner with the PA in the Unity Government is directly responsible for all the death and destruction that occurs within it's borders.
Gazans are not defenseless.
They started multiple wars.
and lost.
You stand with terrorism and terrorists that clearly state their goal is the genocide of the Jews.
That is anti-Semitic.
Praise to those that who stand up for justice?
bullshit.
.
DeleteHamas, an elected government of the Gaza Strip, that is a partner with the PA in the Unity Government is directly responsible for all the death and destruction that occurs within it's borders.
The only borders Gaza has are the fences and walls put up by Israel as well as their blockaded shoreline. What don't you get about the word 'occupied'?
.
Great deal you got going there -
ReplyDeleteAugust 18, 2015
Senior Iranian official declares that it holds right of approval over any nuclear inspectors
By Thomas Lifson
The assurances President Obama and John Kerry offered on tough inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities have crumbled into meaninglessness. First, the “anytime, anywhere” slogan fell to only the sites the Iranians approve, and 24 days’ notice. Now, with the latest statement out of Tehran, it is apparent that even those late, limited inspections will be a joke. Adam Kredo of the Free Beacon reports:
Sayyed Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and one of the top negotiators in talks that led to the recently inked nuclear deal, told the country’s state-controlled press that Iran’s intelligence apparatus must approve of any inspector who is issued a visa to enter Iran.
As Paul Mirengoff points out, we have no way of knowing if this is part of the deal agreed to by the Obama administration, because we aren’t allowed to see that deal. And it hardly matters, because the Iranians control access to their country, so what they say the deal is, is all that matters.
Now, what kind of Senator or Representative would be willing to endorse a deal in which the object of suspicion gets to delay inspections and holds the right of approval over any inspectors? If they think that’s OK for Iran, which threatens us with nuclear weapons and ICBMs in ten years or so, how about we use that same system for the IRS? If we had the right of approval for the IRS auditors who inspect our tax returns, who would bother to pay taxes?
To review.
ReplyDeleteThe arabs control 899/900th of the middle east.
Israel control 1/900th.
The 899/900th has almost no jews left as they have been ethnically cleansed.
The 1/900th has 20% arabs who live in freedom and citizenship.
When the palestinians want peace they can have it, all they have to do is stop murdering jews.
They have been offered a state NUMEROUS times. They have refused it.
The only reason that Israel has "bombarded Gaza"? IS that Gaza's military has bombed Israel 1st.
Your propaganda is just that propaganda.
What is funny is your ignoring actual brutal bombing of palestinians, not by the Jews, but but the Syrians (backed by the russians and iranians)
As we speak, over 10 million are refugees in Syria, the largest group in the world and over 350,000 have been butchered by Assad and Iran.
But somehow Israel's is the racist apartheid nation, the nation that has a brutal occupation...
Let me laugh out loud at your proposition.
You want brutal?
Go to Iraq.
Go to Yemen.
Go to Iran.
Deuce, you are an anti-semite
ReplyDeleteWhy can't you be honest?
You ridicule the jewish faith.
You hate Israel, it's people and the concept of zionism.
You set up a standard for Israel and it's people that you do not apply to anyone else.
But some reason you are hyper sensitive about this label..
Embrace it.
Your words and posts are clear.
You stand with the Mullahs and Hamas on the topic of Israel.
Any commentator that bashes Israel you praise.
It's quite clear to all except yourself.
Why not express your beliefs to your Jewish friends in Philadelphia?
Oh I know, they would call you an antisemite.
you can't handle the truth.
SO go on, stand with hamas and the mullahs of Iran and play your word games.
.
ReplyDeleteIn an Associated Press interview Tuesday, Amano said Iran specifically agreed to implement what’s known as the agency’s “Additional Protocol” when it agreed to the outlines of the deal now being worked on.
The protocol would allow the Vienna-based agency’s inspectors much more access than they have now to follow up on suspicions of undeclared Iranian nuclear activities or equipment.
The United States and Russia are among the 147 countries with additional protocols, although the US and some others have provisions designed to ensure that inspections do not compromise national security, something Iran also demands. Still, Amano said the same rules will apply to Iran as to the others that have signed on.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/rebuffing-iran-iaea-head-says-deal-allows-access-to-military-sites/
As for Iran's control over which inspectors can be involved, they have indicated that visas will only be issued to countries that they have diplomatic relations with. The US broke off diplomatic and consular services with Iran 35 years ago.
.
The United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 after a group of revolutionary Iranian students, angered that the deposed Shah has been allowed to enter the United States, seized the U.S. Embassy Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage. The U.S. Government does not have diplomatic relations with Iran.
DeleteSo Iran invaded America territory, an act of war…
And America broke off diplomatic relations.
But let's trust Iran and sign an agreement with them..
How hopey and changy of us…
kumbya my lord, kumbya
.
ReplyDeleteFrom January 1 to August 18, Israel demolished 331 Palestinian structures in Area C (not including East Jerusalem) and 457 people, including 263 children, lost the roofs over their heads, according to data from the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and B’Tselem.
The buildings that were demolished were simple and meager, unlinked to water and electricity networks. The communities are geographically distant, primarily from the attention and consideration of most of the Israeli public, which apparently makes do with the usual statement by the spokesman of the Civil Adminstration and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories that the buildings were constructed without permits and they were simply enforcing the law.
What is happening is not law enforcement, but just the opposite. It’s a crude violation of the principles of justice and of international law, which requires the occupying military force to respect the rights of the native occupied population to housing and a livelihood, and prohibits its forcible removal.
The buildings were constructed without a permit, because Israel has refused and still refuses to prepare a master plan for the Palestinian communities living in what is today defined as Area C. The purpose of the ongoing demolitions is transparent: To pressure the Bedouin into agreeing to plans that would concentrate them in permanent towns, and to evict them and the rest of the Palestinians from Area C to Areas A and B, which are under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
In that way, more and more space will be available for the construction and expansion of settlements. And, when the time comes, Israel will be able to say that because so few Palestinians live in about 60 percent of the West Bank and there are so many Israelis, it has a right to annex the territory.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.671841
.
"unlinked to water and electricity networks"
DeleteSquatters
Same thing happens all over the world including the good ole USA.
Squatting is not a legal right.
Building structures without proper infrastructure is ILLEGAL all over the globe. "unlinked to water and electricity networks"
One standard for Israel and the Jews.
No standards for anyone else.
Quirk, what right do you have to live in America?
DeleteWhat right does America have to it's own perceived lands?
.
DeleteIf you don't see the difference between the US then you just don't get it.
The difference is that the US doesn't deny what it is and how it got there. Israel has been promoting a big lie for the last 45 plus years.
It's the hypocrisy, stupid. We all know Israel has no plans for giving back the Palestinian territories. The so-called peace talks are merely a giant never ending kabuki as Israel continues to build facts on the ground with walls and settlements.
Israel has never offered the Palestinians a state. A state isn't denied an army to protect itself. A state doesn't have to agree to have an uninvited foreign army camped on its land indefinitely. A reasonable demand of any new state is that it recognize the right of its neighbors to exist. The PA has done that. It is unreasonable to ask that a state go further and 'approve' of the current governing structure of neighboring states into perpetuity since that's a matter that needs to be determined by the citizens of those states.
This is all evident to anyone who looks. Why doesn't Israel merely state their true intentions so that we can move on without the bull?
.
Sorry Quirk, Jews have lived in the area called israel for 3000 years.
DeleteThat is the difference.
Most of the so called palestinians are immigrants to the specific area, most migrated TOO the Israel area after the Ottoman Empire fell.
To deny Jews, even from the middle east, their equal rights of statehood shows your bias.
The Big Lie? That is that there ever was a "Palestinian" people any different than the local arabs that are spread across several states.
The UN has offered the newly minted arabs called palestinians a state in 1948 and was turned down.
Israel has made several offers and it's been turned down.
As for your caveats about a state?
Are you making up qualifiers as you go?
The PA JOINED Hamas in a UNITY government, it has made null and void any and all agreements made in the past.
What is happening today in the arab world reflects the position of Israel's policy, there is no responsible stable government of the Palestinians in which to make any agreement with.
Please climb off your high horse and get to the ground to see the reality.
The arab world (collectively) is unstable and has NOTHING to do with Israel.
Israel's true intention? SURVIVE in a sea of savages.
Destroying Entire Neighborhoods
ReplyDeleteEgypt has engaged in a broad-scope campaign to clear the border area completely of any structures as part of its preparations to implement a 500-meter (550-yard) buffer zone along Egypt’s 13-kilometer (8-mile) border with Gaza. This includes the destruction of the vast network of tunnels running from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai Peninsula.
The tunnels are used for smuggling anything from cigarettes to cars, and they are a source of revenue for the Hamas regime. However, they are also used for terror and weapons smuggling.
Ma’an previously reported that Egyptian troops had demolished some 800 houses in the area, erasing entire neighborhoods in the process.
Egypt’s operation continues uncontested by the world
---------------------
over 500.000 homeless
JOHANNESBURG, June 30 - The Zimbabwe police finished demolishing a squatter camp outside Harare that once had at least 10,000 residents on Thursday, killing as many as four people, a day after a United Nations envoy met with President Robert G. Mugabe to discuss the refugee crisis that similar mass evictions have set off.
After three days of work, the police destroyed and burned the remains of the Porta Farm settlement, about 12 miles west of Harare, the capital. Mr. Mugabe's government established the camp more than a decade ago for homeless peasants who had migrated to the city seeking work.
Human rights and charitable groups said that two women had died in the demolition, but accounts of the circumstances conflicted. Amnesty International said the women fell from trucks taking evicted residents to tent camps. Another aid group said one of the women died from exposure. One or two children also were reported to have died, from exposure or after being hit by a truck.
The operation continued as Mr. Mugabe met Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, a United Nations special envoy sent to assess the impact of the mass evictions, which have left as many as half a million people homeless since the government began razing homes and flea markets in mid-May.
------
SOCHI RESIDENTS THROWN OUT OF HOMES FOR 2014 WINTER OLYMPICS
Russian President Vladimir Putin has another problem on his hands with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Word is spreading that many people lost their homes for the games and received next to nothing in compensation.
http://www.breitbart.com/sports/2014/02/10/residents-in-sochi-thrown-out-of-homes-for-2014-winter-olympics/
------
Squatter towns are not a new issue…
http://emergenturbanism.com/2009/04/26/squatter-urbanism-comes-to-america
America has had dozens….
All have been demolished
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lands
ReplyDeleteHow much lands are we really talking about?
The entire dispute lands of Israel and the Palestinians would fit INSIDE a decent sized texas ranch.
Look at this map of how much land the FEDERAL Government of the USA "owns"
And before anyone says that it doesn't matter how much land?
DeleteThen answer me this…
When will the arab world give back to the jewish people all the lands they stole? Including Medina in Arabia, and the Temple Mount IN Jerusalem.
Does any rational person not admit that the Jews built the Temple? That the Moslem Golden Dome sits on Jewish Land?
Simple question….
Requires an honest answer.
.
DeleteDoes any rational person not admit that the Jews built the Temple?
No.
That the Moslem Golden Dome sits on Jewish Land?
Of course.
.
That's a big step for you….
DeleteNow that we have established that the Jews built the Temple and that the Moslem Golden Dome sits on Jewish lands?
Should the moslems vacate the temple mount for peace?
.
ReplyDeleteYou misread my answer.
Does any rational person not admit that the Jews built the Temple? That the Moslem Golden Dome sits on Jewish Land?
Does any rational person 'not admit' that the Jews built the Temple? The answer is no.
However, the structure of the dependent clause that follows implies you are asking
[Or,] does any rational person 'not admit'... that the Moslem Golden Dome sits on Jewish Land?
The answer to that is 'of course' a rational person denies that the Golden Dome sits on Jewish Land.
.
Pension-cutters and Privatizers, Oh My
ReplyDeleteI wrote Monday about the strange phenomenon of Republicans lining up to propose cuts to Social Security, a deeply unpopular policy that is, however, also a really bad idea. How unpopular? Lee Drutman has the data: only 6 percent of American voters support Social Security cuts, while a majority want it increased. I argued that this apparent act of political self-destructiveness probably reflected an attempt to curry favor with wealthy donors, who are very much at odds with the general public on this issue:
Excellent Graph
Now we have another example: Marco Rubio has announced his health care plan, and it involves (a) greatly shrinking the tax deductibility of employer health benefits and (b) turning Medicare into a voucher system. Part (a) is favored by many economists, although I would argue wrongly, but would be deeply unpopular; part (b) is really terrible policy — proposed precisely at the moment when Medicare is showing that it can control costs better than private insurers! — and also deeply unpopular.
The strategy here, surely, is to propose things that voters would hate if they understood what was on the table, but hope that Fox News plus “views on shape of planet differ” reporting elsewhere will keep them confused, while at the same time pleasing mega-donors. It might even work, especially if Trump can be pushed out of the picture and the Hillary-hatred of reporters overcomes professional scruples. But it’s still amazing to watch.
DeleteKrugman - NY Times
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ReplyDeleteThe trouble with cuts proposed by the GOP is that they target the wrong people.
If we can move to a more simplified tax code, I wouldn't object to cutting some deductions. The problem of course is that those pushing for a simplified code only suggest the cuts they want. They push a cut to the health care deduction which would be regressive. They object to cuts in the home mortgage interest which would be more progressive. They push for making the retirement age for social security older which is regressive but refuse to consider upping or eliminating the ceiling on SS earnings which would be progressive.
.
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ReplyDeleteSorry Quirk, Jews have lived in the area called israel for 3000 years.
I don’t doubt it. My point is simply, so what?
You seem to think that world history started when Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees took a walkabout and ended up in Egypt and that it was locked in place when the Jews conquered the city of Jebus from the Jebusites. But it just doesn’t work that way.
Archaeology tells us that there were settlements on the current site of Jerusalem 6500 years ago. Egyptian texts 4000 years ago talk of the city Rusalimum on the site. It was around 1000 B.C. that the Jews conquered the city of Jebus from the Jebusites. Over its history, the site and the cities on it have been attacked, destroyed, and conquered and reconquered numerous times.
As for Israel, the Jews moved in and conquered the land from the resident Canaanites. It was an area of conflict before and after this happened. After Jerusalem was built the land was controlled by various groups, countries, empires, and principalities, the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Israelis, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Seleucids, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Parthians, the Romans and Byzantines, the Arab Caliphate, the Crusaders, Saladin and the boys, the Mongols, the Ottomans, the Brits.
The resident population in the area at the time of the mandate were probably a conglomeration of the blood lines from all of these people and they had as much right as any Jew to claim the area as their ‘historical homeland’ too and probably more of a right than those who migrated to the area during the 20th century.
In 1267, Nachmanides migrated from Spain to Jerusalem. He indicated that at that time there were 2 Jews left in the city, two brothers who were dyers. That is why I joke about your comments and suggest those you talk about are like the designated guy who saves everybody else’s place in line at Best Buy on Black Friday.
Let’s forget the ancient history and try to restrict the conversation to the last century or so.
.
.
DeleteMost of the so called palestinians are immigrants to the specific area, most migrated TOO the Israel area after the Ottoman Empire fell.
So did most Jews. In 1922, the Jews in Palestine represented 11% of the total population. Your argument is specious.
As for your caveats about a state?
Are you making up qualifiers as you go?
:0)
Funny, it seems that the Likud government is the one making up new qualifiers. It seem ‘recognition of a Jewish State’ only showed up as a demand in 2007.
What will be next?
.
.
DeleteThe PA JOINED Hamas in a UNITY government, it has made null and void any and all agreements made in the past.
:0)
Again, quite humorous.
As the so-called ‘peace process’ was falling apart last year, Bibi tried to blame it on the Palestinians, whining for a couple months that he wasn’t able to negotiate a deal because the PA couldn’t speak for all the Palestinian including those in Gaza. Then when the PA and Hamas formed a ‘unity government’ Bibi went batshit crazy and tried everything he could to destroy the deal. We saw the end result.
The PA JOINED Hamas in a UNITY government…
No the PA didn’t join Hamas in a UNITY government. Hamas joined the PA in a UNITY government. And if you don’t understand the difference let me explain.
Hamas was dead in the water. Their popularity in Gaza was at a low point. They were about bankrupt. They were being ignored in the ‘peace process.’ They were on the outs with Iran because of their position on Assad. They were hurting. So they capitulated to the PA leadership. They agreed that PA operatives would take over key positions in the administration of Gaza. They reportedly agreed to abide by the PA’s charter and positions which presumably includes the PA position recognizing Israel’s right to exist.
No wonder Bibi went nutz, another excuse shot all to hell.
.
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ReplyDeleteClinton: 51%
Trump: 45%
Heck, it's starting to get scary. Is there anyone currently running, in either party, you would want for our next president?
.
I'm looking at This guy:
ReplyDeleteDeez Nuts is polling at 9% in North Carolina, leading most GOP presidential candidates—not joking
From PPP:
Finally another declared independent candidate, Deez Nuts, polls at 9% in North Carolina to go along with his 8% in Minnesota and 7% in Iowa in our recent polling. Trump leads Clinton 40/38 when he's in the mix.
PPP
Deez Nuts
DeleteInterestingly, he seems to be taking mostly from The Donald.
Delete