Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chas. who wrote (6778)	1/18/2005 9:34:05 AM
From: Ed Huang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 22250

Opoo, how about the problem from the South? Should we be up in arms over Egypt's buildup? haaretz.com

To: Chas. who wrote (6778)	1/21/2005 5:50:26 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

The right to resist Ariel Sharon has resumed his arm-twisting, this time against the newly elected PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Hours before Abbas was sworn in a resistance operation targeted Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories. Sharon seized on the incident to lash out against Abbas, declare a boycott against his government, clamp down blockades on Gaza and Palestinian cities in the West Bank and another wave of violence against Palestinian civilians. Resistance operations that target Israeli civilians or that are mounted inside Israel proper should be condemned. But operations that target occupied forces or settlements in the occupied territories fall into a different category. They can be criticised on tactical but not moral grounds. Such acts of resistance are the internationally sanctioned right of an occupied people. As such they call for neither a Palestinian apology, though many PA officials raced to offer one, nor do they justify Sharon's severing contacts with the PA. The haste with which Washington, European and Arab capitals condemned the attack suggests that they believe Abbas's sole purpose is to prevent operations against Israeli military targets in the occupied territories. They expect him to arrest Palestinian militants, to disarm and dismantle the resistance infrastructure and to halt all incitement against Israel in the PA media, as though the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has already been resolved, agreements signed and a date set for the declaration of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 boundaries with its capital in Jerusalem. Yet 2005 had hardly begun when Israel asked Washington for $180 million to finance electronic surveillance equipment for crossing points in the separating wall. To usher in the new year Israel confiscated 2,200 dunums of West Bank land for settlement expansion(), declared that it would raze 3,000 homes in Rafah in order to dig a ditch to separate it from the Egyptian border, and continued to send its tanks and bulldozers into Palestinian cities and villages. The congratulations and promises for support Abbas received from world leaders following his election will not help his efforts to reach a political settlement with Israel. Washington and other international parties' message to both Sharon and Abbas must be that only justice can furnish a sound and lasting foundation for peace. The opportunity is at hand to achieve peace through a two-state solution. This will be the test of the intentions of the Sharon government. If it fails to take the hand extended to it we will know that peace is not on its agenda. weekly.ahram.org.eg () Fri., January 21, 2005 Shvat 11, 5765 Injustice and stupidity in Jerusalem In July 2004, Israel's cabinet adopted a decision that was neither made public nor even published in the official government gazette, Reshumot: to apply the Absentee Property Law to East Jerusalem, and thereby to confiscate thousands of dunams of land from owners who live in the West Bank. The reason for the decision was security-related: Since in practice, West Bank residents are barred from entering East Jerusalem because of the intifada, the cabinet decided to enact an official measure that would prevent any use of these lands by their owners in the future as well, and would explicitly state that henceforth their property belongs to the State of Israel. Even though the owners live only a short distance away from their confiscated property, their names and addresses are known and no one doubts their ownership, the cabinet decided to label them "absentees" and apply the law that enabled the state to take over refugees' lands when the state was founded, a law which has never been used since. According to the law, enacted in 1950, every person who was outside of Israeli territory between November 29, 1947 and September 1, 1948 was considered an "absentee," and his assets were transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property, with no possibility of compensation or appeal. [...] haaretz.com

To: Chas. who wrote (6778)	1/24/2005 5:12:35 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Re: I maintain this law protects the Jews from Arab blackmail and extortion and... ...I maintain it's a cradle war --clue: The Arab population in Israel numbers 1.36 million, about 20 percent of the general population. Last week the Central Bureau of Statistics published data on Israel's Muslim community, which constitutes 82 percent of the Arab population. The data expressly prove that demographics is not a scarecrow. According to the CBS announcement, the rate of increase of the Muslim population in 2004 was 3.2 percent, due to entirely natural growth - 2.5 times higher than the 1.3 percent rise in the Jewish population. The rate of increase of Israel's Muslim population is higher than that of neighboring Arab states. Muslims are 16 percent of the entire population - but 25 percent of babies in Israel were born this year to Muslim mothers. The key to natural growth figures is the number of births a woman is likely to have in her lifetime (the birthrate). In order to maintain a stable population, women must have an average of 2.1 children. The table above demonstrates not only the fertility of the Muslim woman in Israel, but the source of the demographic troubles of Western Europe. The birthrates of Muslim women fell sharply after the 1960s, when they exceeded 9 births per woman. After more than 20 years of stability at a rate of 4.6-4.7 births in the '70s and '80s, the rate dropped slightly in 2002 and 2003 to 4.5 births. It is possible that in the future, the birthrate of Muslim women may fall to the levels of other Israeli social sectors, but by then there could be a substantial change in the "weight" of Israel's Muslim population, creating a real demographic threat to the character of the state. What should be done (or not done) in the face of this possibility? First and foremost, not annexing East Jerusalem and its 250,000 Palestinian residents. Without East Jerusalem, the Arab population in Israel drops from 20 percent to 15 percent. [...] haaretz.com Actually, author Avraham Tal (disingenuously?) fails to mention another option for Israel: the physical containment of East Jerusalem --the fencing-off of it-- so that, regardless of the Arab birthrate and the current number of Arab residents in the city, the future growth of Arab residents in Jerusalem will be capped by its physical boundaries. The so-called security wall around East Jerusalem will preclude any urban sprawl and prevent East Jerusalem from outweighing Jewish West Jerusalem. The Israeli endgame is to turn East Jerusalem into an unextendable Arab ghetto --clue: Israel seized east Jerusalem - which includes the walled Old City with its sites holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews - from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it. But east Jerusalem has remained the center of commercial and religious life for the roughly 2 million Palestinians of the West Bank, which surrounds the city from the north, east and south. The new northern section of the barrier cuts off all of Jerusalem from the West Bank administrative center, Ramallah, and the gateway to Nablus and other towns. The southern barrier separates the city from the biblical town of Bethlehem, Hebron and other areas. Together, the northern and southern barriers - built mostly during the past six months - are some 12 miles long; plans are not clear on how to close the gap between the two, facing the lightly populated area to the east of the city. Israelis say separation is essential to stopping terrorism and enabling negotiations for a peace treaty after which the West Bank barrier, or parts of it, might be moved or removed. Palestinians, however, have condemned the project as a grab of land they consider theirs. Along the stretch of barrier completed in the north of the West Bank, significant tracts of Palestinian agricultural land were seized. The Jerusalem fences, opponents say, also mean West Bank Palestinians will be cut off from the city's schools, hospitals and jobs - as well as from Friday prayers at the Al Aqsa mosque, a key Islamic holy site. The barrier also will divide the roughly 200,000 Arabs of east Jerusalem from relatives and friends in the West Bank. Israeli roadblocks set up since fighting broke out in September 2000 already has made such access very difficult. But it was not impossible, and there was hope that one day the roadblocks might go away. The project also undermines the Palestinians' efforts to develop a commercial hub in a future east Jerusalem capital, said Stephanie Koury, a legal adviser to the PLO. The situation is complicated by the fact that Israel has ringed east Jerusalem with Jewish neighborhoods - making a simple division impossible and even creating a slight Jewish majority in the occupied sector. The project also sometimes leaves Palestinian areas caught between the fence and other travel restrictions. The southern Jerusalem barrier, for example, veers into the West Bank to incorporate on the "Israeli" side Rachel's Tomb, revered by religious Jews as the burial site of the biblical matriarch. The site is just south of Jerusalem, inside Bethlehem; about 400 Palestinians living near the tomb will be cut off from Bethlehem - but aren't expected to get Jerusalem access permits either. The new barrier is impossible to hop over. In some places it stretches as wide as a football field, with a 10 foot high fence with electric sensors in the middle. On either side are 13 feet deep trenches and pyramid-shaped stacks of six coils of razor wire. On the Israeli side is a smoothed strip of sand to detect footprints and a paved patrol road. [...] kansas.com