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| Israel-Palestine | ||
| Israel Announces West Bank Housing Plans | ||
| 2004-08-24 | ||
Israel announced plans Monday for 500 new housing units in the West Bank, after an apparent U.S. policy shift that has infuriated the Palestinians. The Palestinians oppose all Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, lands where they hope to establish an independent state. The United States, which supports the Gaza pullout plan, has signaled recently that it will allow Israel to build inside existing West Bank settlements, while remaining opposed to construction in undeveloped areas. In the past, Washington has objected to all settlement construction. In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli reinforced those signals Monday when he characterized the construction freeze as an ultimate goal, adding, "And we will continue to work with the government of Israel toward a settlement freeze, as is called for in the road map." The Palestinians have said that U.S. approval of the new construction would threaten prospects for peace, and they demanded a clarification from Washington.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #13 BECOUSE AFTER LIVE IN WARSHAW OR ANY OTHER EURO GHETTO THAT SCUM RATS JEWS ARE IN PARADISE IN STOLLEN WEST B. |
| Posted by: SHARON HUNTER KILLER 2004-08-24 2:46:51 AM |
| #12 So... the newly dead Jews are taken down by elevator to the lowest level of hell.... Looks like a cross between Paris and Miami Beach. Sure us Jews been working on the place for 2000 years! Or compare and contrast Israel to the West Bunk. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-08-24 7:53:06 PM |
| #11 Shipman, Huh? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-08-24 6:06:14 PM |
| #10 It's an old Jew joke (hi Rex!) but imagine the bottom layer of hell...... or paradise. Jews been working on it for 2000 years now.... |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-08-24 5:52:59 PM |
| #9 The problem with the explainations of why posted here is the fact that these are all new housing in otherwise existing settlements. It doesn't really help Israel hold the settlements any better but does create a political problem. There must be some local Israeli explaination for this because I can't see one from here. |
| Posted by: RJSchwarz 2004-08-24 5:10:10 PM |
| #8 Jews want to be in Samaria and Judea because these are the traditional Jewish areas. For example, Jews had been in Hevron from the beginning of their history until 1929 when the paleostinians massacred most and drove the rest out. There are many Jewish religious and historical sites on the west bank of the Jordan rriver. |
| Posted by: Brett_the_Quarkian 2004-08-24 1:10:51 PM |
| #7 Speaking of water, Israel is constructing the biggest desalination plant of its kind (reverse osmosis) in the world. The Ashkelon plant at Eilat is quite a project. Read about it here. They are getting the cost of producing water down to competitive levels, too. Meanwhile, compare this to the Paleos at Gaza who are hard at work, splitting up their dwindling graft pie, while their aquifer is going brackish, to be used only for boiling spagetti noodles. Since booming and martyrdom are their top priorities, the Paleos never look to the dull and boring things like infrastucture, water and sewer. On the other hand, Israel is making the deserts bloom. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-08-24 1:00:44 PM |
| #6 Israeli expansion and control of parts of the West Bank has more to do with water than anything else. There is a huge fresh water aquafir under the West Bank region that was tapped years ago by Israel. Wells in Gaza and north to Tel Aviv are becoming brackish due to inflow of sea water making access to the West Bank source more important than ever. If the Arabs took possesion of those wells it would be used against the Israeli's forever more. |
| Posted by: Don 2004-08-24 11:55:05 AM |
| #5 Rationale probably goes along the line of: We Jews spent the last 2,000 years or so being pushed around and kicked out of every country in the world, not to mention killed whenever anybody felt like it. Now WE gonna make the rules. |
| Posted by: DLS 2004-08-24 11:13:24 AM |
| #4 SHK, slight correction. Its paradise because the Jews live there. Otherwise the west bank is your your standard 3rd world sh*thole. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-08-24 6:23:12 AM |
| #3 John, allow me to speculate that the settlers have something genetically in common with the folks that hit the Oregon trail. You would have thought that they would have been satisfied to buy a farm in Southwestern Pennsylvania if they wanted to reside in the middle of nowhere. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-08-24 2:54:59 AM |
| #2 [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted] |
| Posted by: SHARON HUNTER KILLER TROLL 2004-08-24 2:46:51 AM |
| #1 I'm generally pro-Israel in most matters but can someone explain to me why any sane Israeli would want to live in the West Bank. |
| Posted by: John in Tokyo 2004-08-24 1:35:52 AM |