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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GST who wrote (25652)	4/16/2002 4:56:00 PM
From: Bald Eagle	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Sorry, but I think Arafat and the other Arabs who pay money to the homicide bombers' families do a lot more inciting of Palestinians than anyone else does.

To: GST who wrote (25652)	4/17/2002 2:29:13 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

U.S. pays for Israeli policy it condemns By Kenneth Cuno [Kenneth Cuno teaches the history of the modern Middle East at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign] The Chicago Tribune Published April 17, 2002 With April 15 still fresh in our minds, this is a good time to consider how American taxpayers are financing Israel's illegal and shortsighted policy of building Jewish settlements in the territories it occupied during the June 1967 war. All but the most extremist supporters of Israel in the U.S. recognize the ever-growing settlements as standing in the way of a geographically viable Palestinian state, thereby making an end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians more remote. The U.S. opposes settlement activity, yet our aid to Israel makes the continued financing of settlements possible. Every American administration since 1967 has opposed the building of these settlements. President Jimmy Carter called them illegal, since they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention (to which Israel itself is a signatory) which states that "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Fearful of the pro-Israel lobby, subsequent presidents treaded more softly, calling the settlements "obstacles to peace" and today--even more softly--"unhelpful." Still, our policy is clear: We oppose settlements. Palestinian statehood is an essential part of any eventual peace settlement, but how can there be a Palestinian state if the occupied territories are expropriated for Israeli settlements? Though American aid to Israel is not earmarked for settlement building, by providing aid ostensibly for other purposes the U.S. enables Israel to shift funds from those purposes to the building and subsidizing of settlements in occupied territory. For Fiscal Year 2002 Israel was allotted $2.04 billion in military aid and $720 million in economic aid--in grants, not loans. That's a third of our total foreign aid budget. The total economic aid bill is higher if you include additional goodies like tax deductions for Israel bonds and private contributions to Israel. In fact, "economic aid" is a misnomer. With a per capita GNP comparable to Britain's, Israel is hardly a developing country. Compare the "economic aid" figure above with the estimated $500 million that Israel spent on settlements in 1999, the last year of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, and you can see how American taxpayers are unwittingly helping to finance settlements. Though the leftist Labor and rightist Likud parties differ in their approaches, both parties have built and continue to build settlements in occupied territory. Settlement building started soon after the June war, and intensified with the election of the first Likud government, led by Menachem Begin, in 1977. As Minister of Agriculture in that government, Ariel Sharon, now Israel's prime minister, drew up the Likud's master plan for future settlement development. The 1993 Oslo agreement did not ban settlement activity, though it was implied that the status quo should be maintained, and Israeli governments since then have pledged not to establish new settlements. In spite of that, construction has continued under both Labor and the Likud--and the settler population has actually doubled since Oslo. Israel insists that these are not "new" settlements, but merely existing ones undergoing "natural expansion." But surely there is nothing "natural" about colonization encouraged by tax breaks for businesses and individuals plus subsidized housing--all thanks to American taxpayers. Sharon and others insist that the failure of the peace process and the slide into war is the fault of the Palestinians, who, they claim, never intended to make peace. But consider that before the outbreak of the current conflict 59 percent of the West Bank had been expropriated by Israel for settlements, roads, and other purposes, all for the benefit of 200,000 settlers, leaving the remaining two-fifths of it for 2 million Palestinians. Over a third of the tiny Gaza Strip had been seized for a mere 6,500 settlers, shrinking the area in which another 1.1 million Palestinians are confined. One-third of annexed East Jerusalem's area had been expropriated to make way for 180,000 settlers. In his first year in office, Sharon has established 25 new settlement outposts, building at a faster pace than Netanyahu did. The settlers have full rights and benefits as Israeli citizens. They can vote and are subject to Israeli civilian law, while their Palestinian neighbors live under occupation. The shortsightedness of Israel's settlement policy is clear enough: It deprives the Palestinians of any hope for meaningful self-determination and removes any reason for them to take the "peace process" seriously. Proposals advanced by former President Bill Clinton and recently by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah recognize that things have gone to the point where no Israeli government can remove all of the settlers. They provide instead for the removal of some settlers and a land swap to compensate the Palestinians for the settlement blocks that Israel will annex. This is acceptable to the Palestinians, but continued settlement activity threatens to make even this compromise impossible. President Bush has an opportunity to signal his disapproval of Sharon's intransigence by threatening to withhold Israel's next economic aid check. He could take up the suggestion of former Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) that we reduce Israel's economic aid in direct proportion to what Israel spends on settlement activity. That would not affect Israel's security, since military aid is separate. But it would make a distinction between our support for Israel's right to exist on one hand, and its colonial expansion on the other. If the president hears from enough disgruntled taxpayers, he might be encouraged to put your money where his mouth is. Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune chicagotribune.com