Israel claims more Lebensraum

[bobalot]

More flats being built for Israeli settlers squatters.

Israel approves more construction in West Bank settlement

Approval to build 112 new flats in Beitar Illit comes despite Israeli government's partial curbs on settlement construction

The Israeli defence ministry today authorised further construction in a Jewish settlement on the occupied West Bank.

The decision came prior to the arrival in Israel of the US vice-president, Joe Biden, who is expected to announce a new round of indirect peace talks.

Approval for 112 new flats in Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement near Bethlehem, was given despite a 10-month partial curb on settlement construction announced by the Israeli government under heavy US pressure in November.

The decision to approve the building work appeared to be an attempt to appease members of Israel's rightwing coalition government. It was greeted with dismay by Palestinian officials.

George Mitchell, the US special envoy, has spent months attempting to get Israelis and Palestinians to restart negotiations, and was hoping a new round of indirect "proximity" talks would begin today.

"If the Israeli government wants to sabotage Mitchell's efforts by taking such steps, let's talk to Mitchell about maybe not doing this if the price is so high," Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said.

For many months, Palestinian officials resisted any return to negotiations with Israel, saying all settlement construction should first be halted in line with the obligations of the US "road map" of 2003.

All settlements on occupied territory are illegal under international law.

Finally, under international pressure, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was persuaded to enter a four-month period of shuttle diplomacy, led by Mitchell and due to start in the coming days.

Although the US administration last year demanded Israel halt all settlement building, it eventually welcomed the partial curbs imposed by the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

The temporary curbs did not apply to east Jerusalem, public buildings or around 3,000 flats whose construction was already under way.

The Israeli defence ministry said the Beitar Illit flats had been approved under the previous Israeli government and that construction needed to happen now, for unspecified security reasons.

However, Hagit Ofran, of the Israeli group Peace Now, which monitors and opposes settlements, said the construction directly contradicted Netanyahu's settlement curbs, which prevented building of any flats – even if already approved – on which work had not yet started.

"It is a very unfortunate welcome that the government of Israel is giving to the vice-president," she said.

"It is as if they want to make it look like they want peace but on the other hand to torpedo the chance for these talks to succeed."

Last week, another plan for 600 new flats in the east Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Zeev passed through an initial stage of the approval process.

It's a bit of a slap in the face for Obama to have this announcement just as Biden turns up, as he was a proponent of freezing settlement expansion. The Israelis probably realised that Obama is a pussy shit who won't do anything.

[Darth Wong]

It's a slap in the face, but so what? The most they'll get from America is a "sternly worded rebuke". The USA is Israel's bitch.

Hell, American presidential candidates must compete on how much they can deep-throat Israel's cock, in order to get elected.

[bobalot]

It's a slap in the face, but so what? The most they'll get from America is a "sternly worded rebuke". The USA is Israel's bitch.

Hell, American presidential candidates must compete on how much they can deep-throat Israel's cock, in order to get elected.

True. I really don't know why I expected better with this administration. They probably sussed Obama out as a pussy shit who won't do anything.

I'm at a loss why many Liberals in America support this shit. Israel is basically the last colonial power driving out the locals from the areas rich with resources (good farm land and sources of water), and Americans of all stripes are cheer leading this on.

[Darth Wong]

It's a slap in the face, but so what? The most they'll get from America is a "sternly worded rebuke". The USA is Israel's bitch.

Hell, American presidential candidates must compete on how much they can deep-throat Israel's cock, in order to get elected.

True. I really don't know why I expected better with this administration. They probably sussed Obama out as a pussy shit who won't do anything.

Replace "Obama" with "America" and you'd be right. The entire country is on board with this bullshit. The only reason we can freely say these things about Israel is the fact that none of us is seeking high office.

I'm at a loss why many Liberals in America support this shit. Israel is basically the last colonial power driving out the locals from the areas rich with resources (good farm land and sources of water), and Americans of all stripes are cheer leading this on.

Yeah, because they think they're making up for the Holocaust by letting Jews do whatever they want.

[bobalot]

I'm at a loss why many Liberals in America support this shit. Israel is basically the last colonial power driving out the locals from the areas rich with resources (good farm land and sources of water), and Americans of all stripes are cheer leading this on.

Yeah, because they think they're making up for the Holocaust by letting Jews do whatever they want.

I have come across the "Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jews" argument a fair few times as well.

They never think about the implications of such a statement, and the utter absurdity of using it as a justification.

[Darth Wong]

I'm at a loss why many Liberals in America support this shit. Israel is basically the last colonial power driving out the locals from the areas rich with resources (good farm land and sources of water), and Americans of all stripes are cheer leading this on.

Yeah, because they think they're making up for the Holocaust by letting Jews do whatever they want.

I have come across the "Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jews" argument a fair few times as well.

They never think about the implications of such a statement, and the utter absurdity of using it as a justification.

I don't think that any white person in North America should ever get away with using that argument, for obvious historical reasons.

[von Neufeld]

Well, at least Biden showed his displeasure:

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden snubbed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night by arriving 90 minutes late to a scheduled dinner.

Mr Biden's late arrival was in response to Israel announcing 1,600 new homes will be built in disputed east Jerusalem during his visit to the region.

He sharply rebuked the Israeli step - which came just after the Palestinians agreed to a new round of indirect peace talks under U.S. mediation after a 14-month lapse.

The whole article here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... visit.html

Edit:

However the Israelis says that there will be more settlement anouncements:

'We had no intention, no desire, to offend or taunt an important man like the vice president during his visit,' Mr Yishai told Israel Radio.

'I am very sorry for the embarrassment. We need to remember that approvals are done according to law even if the timing was wrong... Next time we need to take timing into account.'

[Chris OFarrell]

He SHOULD have gone to the West Bank for his visit with the PLA leadership, then just flown stright home in response.

Not that he could, I mean Israel grabs another chunk of territory, the USA protests by missing drinks before dinner! That'll show em!

[Phantasee]

He also did an interview with Al-Jazeera during his visit to Israel.

[Darth Yan]

I remeber reading how at the beginning of last year public support for Israel started to drop. If luck continues, public support could drop to the point where Israel can be strongarmed.

[Phantasee]

What makes you think US support for Israel has anything to do with public support? It's the rare issue that gets determined by public support, anyway. This one is influenced by the strong Zionist and Jewish lobby (lobbies?) in the US. Stereotype or not, Jews in America have a lot of money and that influences more elections than "public support".

[whackadoodle]

I'm at a loss why many Liberals in America support this shit. Israel is basically the last colonial power driving out the locals from the areas rich with resources (good farm land and sources of water), and Americans of all stripes are cheer leading this on.

The Democrats are not some monolithic bloc of progressive liberals, but rather a loose coalition of voting blocs, each with a rather narrow range of issues that they truly care about. Each bloc nominally accepts the causes of the other blocs in exchange for support for their issues. The Jewish bloc's main concern is Israel. If other groups decide that Israel can be told to fuck off, then the Jewish lobby will take their money and their votes somewhere else, probably across the aisle.

[The Grim Squeaker]

What makes you think US support for Israel has anything to do with public support? It's the rare issue that gets determined by public support, anyway. This one is influenced by the strong Zionist and Jewish lobby (lobbies?) in the US. Stereotype or not, Jews in America have a lot of money and that influences more elections than "public support".

The Jews in the US are also rather non monolithic, believe it or not, there's no massive conspiracy of international Trans-Jewish interests.

American Jewish support for Israel is also far less than what it used to be. Netanyahu's dickery certainly isn't helping, despite the fact that he's risking losing control of his coalition for blocking as much of the construction as he has so far (scant though it might be).

Closest analogy might be Obama, he's liberal (Or right wing in Netanyahu's case), but not nearly as much as the people who voted for him/his constituencies want him to be, despite having a strong block (as long as he continues pandering to the right wing blocks which make up some 60% of the political landscape here due to the influences of the Intifada among other cultural and demographic causes)..

[Simplicius]

Phant's right in that US policy toward Israel is driven by AIPAC and other lobbying groups, who provide the money and the message but who are not exclusively Jewish, but not quite as right about the role of American Jews themselves. According to Jeffrey Helmreich, the influence of US Jews is felt not via lobbying and money, but as a voting bloc (similar to the Cuban bloc in Florida, I'd guess):

There are two clashing myths on the political power of American Jewry. One claims that the community is too small to affect national elections; Jews make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population. A contrasting view holds that U.S. Jews play a disproportionately large role in national politics thanks to their campaign donations and media influence.

According to evidence confirmed in the most recent elections, however, American Jewish voters maintain the potential to be the decisive factor in national election results. Yet, this ability does not emanate from any financial or public relations clout, which is overestimated. 1 Rather, American Jews wield power through their high concentration in key states, and their tendency to behave as a swing vote in ways that set them apart from virtually all other groups in American politics.

Anyone recalling the recent hair-splitting tally of individual ballots in a few Florida counties will realize that every vote counts. It should also be noted that Jews happen to comprise a high proportion of the Florida electorate, especially in those counties that remained in suspense. Yet, on closer examination, Florida emerges as just one of a handful of equally influential states across the country where Jews are similarly concentrated. In fact, Jews make up a significant portion of the electorate in several key "swing states," the hard-fought electoral battlegrounds that make or break candidates for president.

But the greatest political strength of American Jewry lies in the fact that it is a uniquely swayable bloc . The issue of support for Israel has proven capable of spurring a sizable portion of Jews to switch parties - in large enough numbers to tip the scales in national or statewide elections. Moreover, the "Israel swing vote" is especially open to political courtship because, unlike the interests of other minority groups, support for Israel has long been compatible with traditional Republican and Democratic agendas. By contrast, most other issues (abortion, affirmative action, etc.) cannot be embraced by Republicans or Democrats without alienating certain support bases. A pro-Israel stance runs no such risk. On the other hand, being distinctively unsupportive of Israel can significantly hurt a candidate's chances.

[article continues]

[Vendetta]

What makes you think US support for Israel has anything to do with public support? It's the rare issue that gets determined by public support, anyway. This one is influenced by the strong Zionist and Jewish lobby (lobbies?) in the US. Stereotype or not, Jews in America have a lot of money and that influences more elections than "public support".

The Jews in the US are also rather non monolithic, believe it or not, there's no massive conspiracy of international Trans-Jewish interests.

They don't really need to be monolithic. The structure of Washington politics ensures that a few people with a lot of money are just as influential, if not more so, than a lot of people with a lot of votes.

[Darth Yan]

true. I read somewhere that many more recent american jews don't have the same level of support for Israel as their grandparents. Doesn't mean the few wealthy ones who do don't have influence

[open_sketchbook]

Question; as Israel is an illegitimate state, what should be done about it? Should they all pack up and move? Is invasion and displacement a proper response? I disagree with Israel's expansionist policies and occupations, but they're also the most stable and most progressive state in the region, even with their fundamentalist population, and they certainly the most democratic and inclusive culture in the Middle East, which I know isn't saying much. Most of the people living there nowadays were born there or moved there when they were very young, so I'm not sure it'd be fair to deconstruct the country.

[cosmicalstorm]

I'm also a bit curious about the future of Israel. The reality seems to be that they will never be defeated on the battlefield, lest it end with a nuclear war, that none of the involved wins. Sometimes I think it would have been better if they had expelled everyone back in the big wars, then they could have built a wall around the entire country and that would have been the end of it.

[bobalot]

I'm also a bit curious about the future of Israel. The reality seems to be that they will never be defeated on the battlefield, lest it end with a nuclear war, that none of the involved wins. Sometimes I think it would have been better if they had expelled everyone back in the big wars, then they could have built a wall around the entire country and that would have been the end of it.

Ethnic Cleansing in one shot is too much, even for Israel. They need to do it slowly over generations, so no-one will raise a fuss.

To be honest, the Israelis have shot themselves in the foot. They have grabbed so much land in the West Bank that a Palestinian State there is no longer viable. Currently, they have control of most of the water and a shitload of the fertile land. It's gotten to the ridiculous point that Palestinian farmers are going broke because they have nothing to water their crops with while Jewish settlers squatters in the West Bank lounge around in swimming pools.

A Palestinian state would have nothing in the way of resources to sustain itself. So basically it's looking like one big apartheid state.

[Guardsman Bass]

Question; as Israel is an illegitimate state, what should be done about it? Should they all pack up and move? Is invasion and displacement a proper response? I disagree with Israel's expansionist policies and occupations, but they're also the most stable and most progressive state in the region, even with their fundamentalist population, and they certainly the most democratic and inclusive culture in the Middle East, which I know isn't saying much. Most of the people living there nowadays were born there or moved there when they were very young, so I'm not sure it'd be fair to deconstruct the country.

You'd have to either push for a South Africa-style of solution where everybody in both Israel proper and the Occupied Territories gets voting and civil rights (which would probably end up being more like Lebanon than South Africa), or have some outside force come in, split them apart along certain territorial lines, and then just sit there with military force for decades.

I say "outside force" for the last one because I doubt either the Israelis or the Palestinians will ever reach a stable two-state situation without it - they don't trust each other, they both have constituencies that would be constantly pushing for conflict to take all the land, and so forth. It'd be like a version of Pakistan and India, only on a much smaller and closer scale (and with national survival at stake rather than a contested piece of land). The first solution is the thing that would probably be best in the long run from a moral stand-point, but it would also probably lead to a lot of local conflict and violence in the short-term.

Ethnic Cleansing in one shot is too much, even for Israel. They need to do it slowly over generations, so no-one will raise a fuss.

Although it obviously depends on how far they can push and keep outside support, that's what they're probably heading for, right now. It's helped by an apparent decline and stabilization in West Bank and Israel Proper Palestinian birth rates. Although I suspect the arrangements are largely because of short-term political and security reasons, the long term outcome might be that most of the Palestinians in the West Bank are squeezed out from economic pressure in the shrinking Palestinian enclaves, until they're like the Palestinians in Israel proper - a minority, and one that would never be able to threaten the Jewishness of Israel even if they all had citizenship. Gaza would probably end up as a de facto Palestinian micro-state.

[hongi]

It's helped by an apparent decline and stabilization in West Bank and Israel Proper Palestinian birth rates.

From your link:

In the end, if no peace agreement is made soon, Israel might be able to perpetuate and normalize their hold of the West Bank, leaving only a poor and overcrowded Gaza strip as the Palestinian state.

Call me pessimistic, but this will not end the conflict at all. The Palestinians will want a greater Palestine.

[Guardsman Bass]

Call me pessimistic, but this will not end the conflict at all. The Palestinians will want a greater Palestine.

I think he means that that would more or less be the de facto Palestinian state, even though it's doubtful that such would be recognized in the international arena.

It certainly wouldn't bring peace with the Palestinians, but they'd be marginalized as a permanent minority inside Israel plus West Bank, stuck in an overcrowded and isolated Gaza, or stuck in the various refugee camps in the surrounding states, and largely unable to threaten the security of Israel.

[The Grim Squeaker]

It certainly wouldn't bring peace with the Palestinians, but they'd be marginalized as a permanent minority inside Israel plus West Bank, stuck in an overcrowded and isolated Gaza, or stuck in the various refugee camps in the surrounding states, and largely unable to threaten the security of Israel.

Well, they could always try overthrowing Jordan/Lebanon again. /nitpick

[hongi]

I think he means that that would more or less be the de facto Palestinian state, even though it's doubtful that such would be recognized in the international arena.

It certainly wouldn't bring peace with the Palestinians, but they'd be marginalized as a permanent minority inside Israel plus West Bank, stuck in an overcrowded and isolated Gaza, or stuck in the various refugee camps in the surrounding states, and largely unable to threaten the security of Israel.

If Israel's endgame is to hold out until they're demographically strong enough, it would be in Israel's interests to delay a peace settlement for as long as possible. That makes scary sense of all the dickish moves that Israel pulls, because they need to keep the conflict going. Example: dividing and conquering the Palestinians as is the case now with the separate Hamas and Fatah states. The main thing that works against such a conspiracy theory is that I can't see successive Israeli governments, as freaking dysfunctional as they are, agreeing and working towards one plan.

And even if it does work, the Palestinians are going to be unhappiest bunch of people on the planet. I guess Israel won't give a fuck.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Question; as Israel is an illegitimate state, what should be done about it? Should they all pack up and move? Is invasion and displacement a proper response? I disagree with Israel's expansionist policies and occupations, but they're also the most stable and most progressive state in the region, even with their fundamentalist population, and they certainly the most democratic and inclusive culture in the Middle East, which I know isn't saying much. Most of the people living there nowadays were born there or moved there when they were very young, so I'm not sure it'd be fair to deconstruct the country.

You'd have to either push for a South Africa-style of solution where everybody in both Israel proper and the Occupied Territories gets voting and civil rights (which would probably end up being more like Lebanon than South Africa), or have some outside force come in, split them apart along certain territorial lines, and then just sit there with military force for decades.

The one-state solution is the only long-term solution that would work equitably for all parties in the long run. It's also the solution that nobody really wants. The Israelis want a two-state solution because they're already busy walling off the spits of land they're willing to give to the Palestinians, they control access to all the utilities, and can hold a putative Palestinian state hostage entirely at-will. The US wants a two-state solution because that's what Israel wants; and by God, what Israel wants, Israel is gonna get. The Palestinians . . . well, nobody in the region really likes the Palestinians and they like Israel even less; so they're all (privately) in favor of the Israeli vision of the two-state solution because it's the most likely to create a population of bitterly unhappy Palestinians who will continually antagonize Israel and keep its attentions focused inward.