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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (75781)	8/8/2006 3:23:50 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362284

The Real Estate War by Gideon Levy ______________________________________________________________ Published on Sunday, August 6, 2006 by Ha'aretz (Israel) This miserable war in Lebanon, which is just getting more and more complicated for no reason at all, was born in Israel's greed for land. Not that Israel is fighting this time to conquer more land, not at all, but ending the occupation could have prevented this unnecessary war. If Israel had returned the Golan Heights and signed a peace treaty with Syria in a timely fashion, presumably this war would not have broken out. Peace with Syria would have guaranteed peace with Lebanon and peace with both would have prevented Hezbollah from fortifying on Israel's northern border. Peace with Syria would have also isolated Iran, Israel's true, dangerous enemy, and cut off Hezbollah from one of the two sources of its weapons and funding. It's so simple, and so removed from conventional Israeli thinking, which is subject to brainwashing. For years, Israel has waged war against the Palestinians with the main motive of insistence on keeping the occupied territories. If not for the settlement enterprise, Israel would have long since retreated from the occupied territories and the struggle's engine would have been significant neutralized. Not that a non-occupying Israel would have turned into the darling of the Arab world, but the destructive fire aimed at Israel would have significantly lessened, and those who continued to fight Israel would have found themselves isolated. The war against the Palestinians is therefore unequivocally a territorial war, a war for the settlements. In other words, in the West Bank and Gaza, people were killed and are getting killed because of our greed for land. From Golda Meir to Ehud Olmert, the lie has held that the war with the Palestinians is an existential one for survival imposed on Israel when it is actually a war for real estate, one dunam after another, that does not belong to us. The situation is different with Syria. For 33 years, the Syrians gave up the military effort to reinstate their occupied lands. Israel can pass a dozen Golan Heights laws to annex it, but occupied territory remains occupied territory. During those three decades, the prevailing view in Israel was that there was no need for peace with Syria: The Syrians sat quietly anyway, so why give them back the Golan? This is the same dangerously foolish thinking that characterized the first 20 years of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians sat quietly, surrendered under the Israeli occupation boot, and it did not occur to anyone to return their territory. Instead, Israel established the settlements. Only when the Palestinians woke up and realized they were going to lose their lands forever did they begin a violent campaign; and only after blood was spilled, did Israel wake up from its dreams and realize that it could not hold onto all of the territories forever. Thus, with regrettable delay and years of bloodshed, the recognition of the PLO, the Oslo accords, the disengagement and the convergence were born - all partial and fake solutions meant to postpone the end of the occupation. We did not need all of that with the Syrians - after all, they sat quietly all of these years. Now comes the war in Lebanon and proves that this was a mistake. Although the Syrians sat on the sidelines, the danger from that direction was not removed and the delusion that the Golan would forever remain in Israeli hands, without our being asked to pay for its occupation, is now slapping us in the face. But the current war could yet turn out to be only an appetizer for the coming wars, which will be far more dangerous. The saying that time is on our side is another delusion. The Arab and Muslim world has armed, in all of this time, and the danger of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles is already hovering over our heads. The only response to that is maximum neutralization of the flashpoints, before the bomb arrives. But Israel has chosen to close its eyes and build its future on a horrifyingly temporary quiet, or on more and more war operations. Just when territory is losing its military importance because of the development of new fighting technology, Israel is using security excuses to stay in the territories. Former-prime minister Ehud Barak criminally missed the opportunity to sign a peace treaty with Syria after he got "cold feet," as witnesses said, and retreated at the last minute. That's how it works with us. When the other side is quiet, why return territories? And when they do go to war, "there's nobody to talk to," and certainly not while we are "under fire." While we are ready to jump on any war bandwagon, as in this time, we endlessly procrastinate when it comes to peace negotiations. Now, too, when Syria, pushed around by the U.S., desperately wants to return to the "family of nations," is an excellent time to try to make peace with it - but there are those who say now is not the time. What will the Americans say? They, after all, are against any deals with Bashar Assad of "the axis of evil." So, there it is, another excuse to miss a golden opportunity, another mendacious excuse. As in the case of the peace with Egypt, the move that has guaranteed Israel's security for years far more than any war, and which was put together behind the America's back, America would not be able to oppose a peace agreement with Syria. Now, after we've hit Hezbollah and ruined Lebanon, the prime minister of Israel should declare: the Golan for peace. That could contribute a lot more to our security than a thousand useless daring operations in Baalbek, but it would take a lot more courage than going off to fight another unnecessary and useless war. © 2006 Haaretz.com

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (75781)	8/8/2006 12:28:38 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 362284

'Dead zone' threat to US suburban dream Petrol price rises may cause the housing bubble to burst, triggering global recession and the fall of America's Eden, writes Paul Harris in New York Sunday August 6, 2006 The Observer Levitown is a bus ride beyond the aptly named Hicksville in the outer suburbs of New York. Its lawns are neat and its houses boxy. From many gardens fly American flags and yellow ribbons: typical displays of suburban patriotism. It was here, almost 60 years ago, that modern American suburbia was born. Work began on the town in 1947 and Long Island potato fields were soon covered with a radical new form of housing: single, similar, purpose-built houses designed for car-owners and aimed at families. At the time it was a shock. Social scientists scoffed at Levittown. But within decades the suburban experiment had come to define US life and what began in Levittown now covers the country in urban sprawl, strip malls and a way of life revolving around the car. Now there are fears it is coming to an end. For the past five years America has been gripped by a housing price bubble. It has funded a huge expansion of suburbia as Americans poured their wealth into their homes. Yet many think that bubble may be about to burst. That would send shock waves through the US economy and into the rest of the world. Nor is that the only threat. The rising price of oil is squeezing suburbanites. It threatens a way of life where pavements are rare and everyone moves by car. 'We have invested all our wealth in a living arrangement with no future,' said James Howard Kunstler, author of the Long Emergency which postulates the end of suburbia. 'In building suburbia we embarked on the greatest misallocation of wealth in the history of the world.' Not that it looked that way in Levittown last week. Kids were driven to school, fathers and mothers drove off to work, the retired sheltered indoors from the heat. Most had an obvious pride in where they lived. 'It's quiet and its peaceful. It's great here. I know it's the suburbs but it is where you want to live to raise a family,' said resident Sherri Smith. Yet there are real signs America's long and profitable love affair with the suburbs may be over. The past five years have seen an unprecedented rise in house prices, which in turn has triggered a massive building boom. But the pace of house sales in America has now declined nine months in a row after setting a record last summer. Across the US once booming markets are stagnant or prices slipping. One recent survey showed home builders have started offering free add-ons, like pools or garages, in order to sell their houses. Home builder confidence is at its lowest level in 14 years. Fortune magazine recently headlined a piece on the housing bubble with the words: 'Welcome to the Dead Zone'. It is a far cry from the mania of the past five years when Americans queued up - sometimes literally - to buy homes in new developments, often doubling their investment in 12 months. Not surprisingly the construction industry responded by a binge of development that saw 75 per cent of new building taking place in the suburbs. That has left the economy deeply reliant on housing. Between 2001 and 2005 housing created 43 per cent of all new jobs in America. If the bubble bursts, the economy could plunge into recession. So tied up is the average American that a 20 per cent drop in prices is seen as equivalent in effect to a 40 per cent drop in the stock market. Though a price collapse would be devastating, trapping homeowners in negative equity and wiping out savings, the fallout cannot be underestimated. Soaring oil prices have threatened suburbia as petrol has risen above $3 a gallon. At the same time heating costs have risen and the so-called McMansions of the 1990s are expensive to keep warm. 'We have these terrible perfect storm conditions. The real estate market in America has gone south. We will get a death spiral,' said Kunstler. Those warning of a coming crisis believe suburbia's economic collapse would force a rethink of the fundamentals of the American way of life. The cultural and political force of suburbia is vast. It is where most Americans live. From The Graduate to American Beauty to Desperate Housewives, the suburbs pervade culture. Their bonhomie and good living have been celebrated in iconic TV shows such as Father Knows Best. Their dark side has also been explored in everything from David Lynch's surreal films to The Simpsons. 'The great American story has ultimately been told in the suburbs,' said Professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse University. Thompson has charted how popular portrayals of the suburbs have changed. In the 1950s it was a celebration of their Edenic qualities as a place to raise a family. By the 1980s cynicism had set in. But most Americans have still chosen to live there, which leads some to believe predictions of a crisis are overblown. Professor Robert Bruegmann of the University of Illinois in Chicago sees the suburban model as the future. In his book, Sprawl, Bruegmann launched a passionate defence of modern urban development that, he argues, has been a great democratic leveller: allowing ordinary working families access to a standard of living previously only available to the wealthy. And the idea of suburbia as a homogeneous, mainly white, cultural desert is a myth. 'They have always been more diverse and interesting than people ever thought,' he said. Suburbia is home to 38 per cent of black Americans, 58 per cent of Asian Americans and more than half of Hispanics. It is also where most new immigrants choose to live. Bruegmann says the model has been closely copied in Europe and thus: 'High oil prices have no impact on suburbs. We have already had that experiment. It is called Europe.' He believes antipathy towards the suburbs lies in the snobbishness of elite culture - Victorian styles were ridiculed right up until the 1950s. Now the first suburban houses in Levittown are sought after as historical monuments. Bruegmann thinks tastes will change as suburban living becomes ingrained in the American psyche. 'That Wal-Mart store that everyone now reviles will be seen as quaint. People will say what wonderful construction methods we had back then,' he said. There may be some truth in that. When Levittown was first built, the houses were derided by architectural critics. Now the Smithsonian Institution in Washington wants to buy one. observer.guardian.co.uk