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One more link on the water issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvMGE1rYBz4

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(On checkpoints)
If anyone is curious (and if they are patient), there is an entire feature film documentary on youtube that explores the effects of the approximately 600 military checkpoints Israel has set up inside the occupied West Bank to prevent free travel of Palestinians. The film consists primarily of footage of Israeli soldiers speaking Hebrew, and Palestinians speaking Arabic, with subtitles also in foreign language. After one gets used to the foreign language issues, the activities become riveting. The title is "The Checkpoint Yoav Shamir". This film is in 26 parts. After seeing the first, the subsequent videos should appear in the "related items" list. To get them all, you can also search youtube with the title: The Checkpoint Yoav Shamir.

Imagine having to do this repeatedly at every checkpoint you pass through, every day of your life...

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYDtIfaQunc&feature=related

:-) :-) :-)

Yea... Arafat was responsible for his share of violence, but he didn't always call for violent acts and bombings. Some of the Palestinian militant factions (much like Israel's fanatical Jewish Settlers) were beyond reliable government control.

Believe it or not, at one time Martin Luther King was a role model for the Palestinian resistance. The idea was to protest with non-violent civil disobediance. They intended to get tens of thousands of Palestinian protesters arrested and fill up the Israeli jails. this would be expensive for Israel and would tax their political will. At some point, Israel implemented a policy to stop jailing protesters. Instead, the IDF and Israeli police began systematically breaking the arms and legs of protesters. I have video of this actually happening. It was shot as part of a documentary. In the video footage, two Israeli policemen knock down a protester, hold him down, place his arm into a "fixture" and break it with a ball bat. I assume the fixture was intended do make the process more efficient. This was not an isolated incident. It was policy.

Long story short, after Israel began breaking bones, the Palestinian resistance fractured into splinter groups because there was no consensus over how to respond. Black September was one offshoot. This group was later involved in the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games.

-- Israeli Arabs struggle for land --

Link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8164755.stm

*****
After Israel's housing minister called on Jews to move to the north of the country to stop what he described as "the spread of Arabs" there, the BBC's Katya Adler reports on the struggle for land in the area.

Sami Salameh has taken me to what used to be his home before the Israeli authorities flattened it. Metal rods and slices of skirting board are all that's left, among an expanse of sun-scorched wild grass. He has brought along some photographs and kicks the earth as he shows them to me. The wiry 65-year-old man is angry and emotional.

"When the house collapsed so did my dreams," he says. He insists this plot of earth belonged to his family dating back to Ottoman times. But Israel has claimed it as state land. He is not allowed to build here now.

Mr Salameh's new home is in the Arab town of Majdal Krum, in northern Israel. It's illegally built, as is the whole neighbourhood. His family of 14 lives in three rooms. The sewage system is poor. Mr Salameh's wife, Ashi, tells me the atmosphere in the house is listless and depressed. He blames their birthright - living as Arabs in the Jewish state of Israel, he says.

"I lost everything when they demolished my house. If I had equal rights, I wouldn't be in this mess. Jewish communities get building permits easily. They have electricity, water, sewage, street lights and parks. How come they live like that and we don't?"

Just outside Mr Salameh's home, a group of boys plays football in the street. Their identity, like his, is complex. They are Israeli but also Arab. Their families stayed put in Israel after its war of independence 60 years ago. Israel's Basic Law says all its citizens are equal, but Israeli Arabs say some Israelis are more equal than others.

Neighbouring the town is the leafy, affluent, self-proclaimed Zionist village of Manof. It is one of the growing predominantly Jewish communities encouraged in the north by Israeli governments since the late 1970s.

'No discrimination'

Northern Israel is home to the highest concentration of Israeli Arabs. But Ron Shani, the head of the Regional Council, insists there is no discrimination here. "Zionism is not racism. Not for me. Not for most people who live in Israel. Northern Israel is Arab, it's Jewish, it's Druze. We have to value and admire each other."

"We have a few Bedouin villages in my council. And it's not true that Israeli Arabs are barred from our Zionist Jewish villages - as long as they understand and accept this is a village under the Jewish Israeli ethos. Of course I came to live in the north with Zionist ideals in mind but Misgav villages were formed on government-owned land. No confiscation was done from Arab-owned land."

But a lot of Arab land was turned into Israeli state property in the years following Israel's independence. The majority of Arab land expropriated was labelled "deserted property" by Israel's authorities before its acquisition by the state.

Towns 'restricted'

Hanan Swaid is an Israeli-Arab member of Israel's parliament, the Knesset. He takes me to a vantage point overlooking the Israeli-Arab town of Sakhnin. An Israeli government commission found many Israeli-Arab towns are effectively blocked from expanding. He points out the problems Israeli Arabs face - overcrowding, poverty and the ways, he says, Israel's authorities strangle Arab towns, restricting construction, progress and growth.

"You can see surrounding Sakhnin this military base - which of course prevents Sakhnin and the people from using these lands which they used to own," he says. "You can see there are only tens of metres between the houses of Sakhnin and the industrial zone. Of course all the benefits of this industrial zone go to Misgav - which is the Jewish regional council."

An Israeli government commission came to the same conclusions. The Orr Commission published a report on the status of Israeli Arabs in 2003. It says Israel has effectively blocked the expansion of its Israeli Arab towns by surrounding them with highways, nature reserves, Jewish councils, military zones or other entities.

'Cultural, not political'

The Israeli-Arab population has roughly increased sevenfold since Israel's independence. Bearing in mind loss of land and building restrictions, human rights groups say the land available to Israeli Arabs has actually shrunk over the years.

The Orr Commission concluded that "[the Israeli] government's handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful and discriminatory".

Hanan Swaid says it is not that the rights of Israeli Arabs are ignored, but they are given low priority. "Israel is Jewish and democratic in theory but on the ground the two things don't mix. "The definition of Israel as a Jewish state leads to giving the best to Jewish citizens. We Arabs are therefore discriminated against."

In Jerusalem I put the complaints and concerns of Israeli Arabs to Israel's Housing Minister Ariel Atias.

He dismissed them. He has caused quite a storm here, suggesting what he called the "spread of the Arabs" in northern Israel should be curbed and urging Jews and Arabs in Israel to live separately. "We believe that the land of Israel was given to us Jews by the Lord. Eighty percent of Israelis are Jewish," he says.

"Having said that, there are citizens of Israel who are Arab. We want them to identify with the goals of the state of Israel. We don't intend to put them in ghettos, or limit their growth, they receive all the rights.

"They work for us, with us in factories, in all the restaurants. But each one wants to live with his own culture. It's not that, God forbid, we have anything against Muslims. We want to prevent friction. You may not like what I'm saying, but it's cultural. Not political."

One in five Israelis is Arab.

But academic studies, such as those completed by Oren Yiftachel, a professor at Israel's Ben Gurion University, suggest this 20% of Israel's population lives on around 3% of Israel's lands. Living separately is one thing, but Israeli Arabs say no new Arab town has been built for them since 1948, when the state of Israel was created.
*****

:-) :-) :-)

-- West Bank deportation challenged --

Link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8356103.stm

*****
Thursday, 12 November 2009
The Israeli Supreme Court is due to hear the case of a 21-year-old Palestinian woman whom the army removed from the West Bank to Gaza Strip.

Bethlehem University student Berlanty Azzam was deported two weeks ago.

The Israeli army said that she had only been given a permit, back in 2005, to spend a few days in Jerusalem.

Her case has been taken up by an Israeli human rights group which argues that tens of thousands of other Palestinians face deportation to Gaza.

At the end of October, Ms Azzam was stopped at a checkpoint in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers.

When they saw that her home address was in the Gaza Strip, she was detained, and later blindfolded and handcuffed, before being deported to Gaza.

Illegal resident claim

She was just two months away from completing her degree in business management at Bethlehem University.

The army said that since 2005 she had been living illegally in the West Bank.

The Israeli human rights group, Gisha, is disputing that claim at the Israeli Supreme Court.

Gisha argues that at the time Ms Azzam left Gaza, there was no such thing as a special permit for Palestinians to enter the West Bank.

What's more, Israel does not allow people to change their addresses from Gaza to the West Bank.

The human rights group says that as many as 25,000 people in the West Bank are in a similar position to Ms Azzam, and risk being removed from their homes, their jobs and their families.
*****

Quote:
"What's more, Israel does not allow people to change their addresses from Gaza to the West Bank."

OTOH, Israel is quite happy to allow, -even encourage, fund, and facilitate- the changing of any Jew's address from Israel (or even other parts of the world) INTO the West Bank. That is what the Settlements are for. IE: Deliberately moving Jews into the West Bank in defiance of the Geneva Convantion and international law. Luckily for them, Jewish settlers do not have to pass through the checkpoints. They have "bypass roads" which bypass the checkpoints. As only Jews can use the bypass roads, it establishes a clear case of racisism and de-facto apartied.

:-) :-) :-)

-- Israel rejects Palestinian move --

Link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8361654.stm

*****
Israel has warned the Palestinians against trying to gain international recognition for an independent state, saying negotiations are the solution.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said such unilateral moves would unravel past agreements in the peace process.

The chief Palestinian negotiator said he would ask the UN Security Council to recognise an independent state because of a failure to restart talks.

Saeb Erekat said continued settlement expansion left them with few options.

Israel has offered to restrict the growth of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, but the Palestinian Authority has demanded that all construction is halted before it will again attend peace talks.

Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built on occupied territory since 1967. They are illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

The impasse has led the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to announce that he will not seek re-election.

'Terms of reference'

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Erekat said the Palestinians had decided to turn to the UN Security Council after years of failed negotiations.

"We have not been negotiating for two states for 18 days or 18 months. For God's sake, we have been doing it for 18 years! Now it's a defining moment," he said.

"This is not a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence. This is us seeking to go to the Security Council and telling them the terms of reference for the peace process," he added.

"Isn't it time now to define the two states? This is consistent with the terms of reference for the peace process because the respective Israeli governments have failed us in this."

Mr Erekat said Arab foreign ministers had decided a meeting in Cairo last Thursday to approach the Security Council with the proposal.

"We agreed… that this will happen after further consultations with the European Union, the Americans, the Russians, the UN, and all the other members of the international community."

"We're not in a rush. We're going to prepare our homework very well and we're going to explain our position to the international community before doing so."

Later, Israel's prime minister warned the Palestinians against any unilateral move in their quest for independence, saying there was no "substitute for negotiations".

"Any unilateral action would only unravel the framework of agreements between us and can only lead to one-sided steps on the part of Israel," Mr Netanyahu said without elaborating.

Mr Netanyahu's spokesman, Mark Regev, told the BBC that Israel had been willing to negotiate but that the Palestinians had not.

"To be fair, it's Israel that's been calling now for months to restart the talks. Unfortunately, it's the Palestinian side that has been putting preconditions on having those talks and therefore preventing the re-emergence of a strong diplomatic dialogue," he said.

"Mr Erekat should ask himself... 'Why have they refused stubbornly and unfortunately to return to the negotiating table?'"

The BBC's Katya Adler in Jerusalem says the Palestinian Authority's move reflects its growing frustration with the deadlock in the peace process, but it is largely symbolic.

The Palestinians have already declared independence unilaterally in 1988.

The move was recognised by dozens of countries but never implemented on the ground.
*****

(Quote)
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said such unilateral moves would unravel past agreements in the peace process."

I suppose this would be like Israel's unilateral settlement activity unraveling the Road Map agreement.

Israel calls the stipulation that Settlement building must stop a precondition. Actually, it is not. It is a requirement of the Road Map agreement that Israel signed in 2003. On the other hand, Israel (under Netanyahu) has demanded preconditions including recognition of Israel "as a Jewish state" (latter part in quotation being the new stipulation), and "ZERO violence", which is a precondition for negotiations demanded by Ariel Sharon during the second intifaida.

All that the Palestinians ask is for Israel to honor it's Road Map obligations with zero settlement construction until after the peace agreement is completed.

My opinion:
It'll take nukes and a crowbar to pry those Settlers out of the West Bank, and no part of the Israeli government has the guts and balls to take political responsibility for doing it. In fact, there has been a neo-con effort for several years to place covert sabateurs and military rabbis into the IDF who would break the chain of command in the event the IDF were called upon to remove Settlers. Therefore... it is highly likely that outside military force must eventually be brought to bear to accomplish the job.

:-) :-) :-)

-- US fury as Israel approves 900 new housing units in Gilo settlement --

Link:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6920726.ece

*****
November 17, 2009
Strained relations between Israel and the United States hit a fresh low today when the State Department condemned the construction of 900 new housing units in an East Jerusalem settlement suburb as "dismaying".

Britain also condemned the controversial decision by Israel to go ahead with the major construction project in Gilo, which was built on land conquered in the 1967 war, calling the move "wrong."

The dispute brought to a head simmering tensions between Israel's right-wing government, headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and its major backer, Washington. Almost immediately after he assumed office, President Barack Obama said he wanted a total freeze on all Jewish settlements in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, considered illegal by the international community, as a means of reinvigorating long-stalled peace talks.

But Mr Netanyahu has refused, blocking a central plank of the US administration's policy to end the decades-old conflict. In a rare flash of diplomatic anger today, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, "We find the Jerusalem planning committee decision to move forward the approval process for the expansion of Gilo, in Jerusalem, as dismaying." "We believe that these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," he added.

A statement issued by the British consulate in Jerusalem added David Miliband's displeasure to the US warning. "The Foreign Secretary has been very clear that a credible deal involves Jerusalem as a shared capital. Expanding settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem makes that deal much harder. So this decision on Gilo is wrong and we oppose it," the statement said.

In a sign of growing US anger, the State Department went even further, attacking Israel's evictions of Palestinian families from war-conquered East Jerusalem and the regular demolition of Palestinian homes. "We object to this and we object to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolition of Palestinian homes," Mr Kelly said.

Gilo is a lower middle class suburb of Jerusalem overlooking the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, which is also faced by another settlement suburb, named Har Homa, which sits right on its boundaries and where construction work has also been continuing.

Israeli media reported today that Mr Obama's regional envoy, George Mitchell, had asked Mr Netanyahu's representative Yitzhak Molcho to suspend plans to build the 900 new Gilo homes - mostly four- to-five bedroom apartments, intended to attract better-off investors - but his request had been flatly denied.

The daily Yediot Ahronoth said Mr Molcho replied that Gilo was an "integral part" of Jerusalem and that construction permits were issued in the same way as they would be in Tel Aviv. US officials were said to be frustrated by the "procedural" nature of the response, as the Palestinians have said they will not resume any negotiations until all settlement growth is put on ice.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem - which includes the historical Old City, full of sites holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians - as the capital of their future state, while Mr Netanyahu has said the city is Israel's indivisible capital. An Israeli official said Mr Netanyahu "is ready to show the maximum restraint when it comes to construction in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) to help restart negotiations, but this policy does not apply in Jerusalem, our capital."

Furious at Israel's position, the Palestinian leadership has said it plans a universal declaration of independence and will approach the United Nations for endorsement. That move in turn angered Israel, with some ministers calling for a unilateral annexation of areas of the West Bank containing Israeli settlements.
*****

Kudos to the government of Israel for making North Korean diplomatic negotiations look almost sane. It seems they badly want push to come to shove. Of course, then they can play the "anti-Semite" card, the "Jews are eternal victims" card, and the "God says Christians must help us" card...

I hate to say it, but the Romans, the Catholic Church (which persecuted and killed thousands of European Jews during the Inquisition for undermining the authority of the Pope), and Adolph Hitler may all have had more legitimate strategic justification for their horrific acts than politically revised history would suggest today.

It's time to consider fighting fire with fire.

:-) :-) :-)

All I'm saying is if you had a room full of belligerent North Korean diplomatic negotiators, the decision to ~"just shoot 'em and be done with it" would be easy. The government of Israel's behavior (as an example of organized criminals) is approaching the same standard.

As for Rome, the Catholic Church, and Hitler, the thing they have in common is that they were all significant geopolitical forces who determined that socially organized Jews posed a real threat to their sovereignty, -a threat which they subsequently acted against.

Now Israel stands in the way of US interests in implementing the Road Map peace plan, acting pointedly against President Obama's repeated requests, in violation of both International Law and the Geneva Convention. History is a good predictor of future behavior.

Bang. Bang. Problem solved.

For background on the horrors of the Inquisition and it's specific targeting of Jews and "crypto Jews", see link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#The_start_of_the_Inquisition

:-) :-) :-)