Israeli settlements in the West Bank encompass 12 million square meters of roads, homes and factories that cost more than $17 billion to build, according to a study by the Macro Center for Political Economics.
Using satellite imagery and other technology, the research institute mapped every home and structure put up in the settlements.
Its work was the result of a years-long effort to gauge the total value of the Jewish settlement enterprise in the West Bank.
…
According to the study, Israeli settlements are home to 868 publicly owned facilities occupying 488,769 square meters.
These include 127 synagogues that cover 94,848 square meters, 96 ritual baths over a territory of 10,755 square meters, 321 sports facilities over 382,867 square meters, 344 kindergartens over 91,353 square meters, 211 schools over 296,933 square meters, 68 yeshivas over 100,943 square meters and 21 libraries over 8,962 square meters.
As for residential units, the total number of apartments stands at 32,711 spread over a space of around 3.27 million square meters, as well as 22,997 private homes over 5.74 million square meters.
There are 187 shopping centers in the settlements occupying 162,399 square meters, 717 industrial structures on 904,817 square meters of land, 15 banquet halls on 23,186 square meters and paved roads that cover more than 1.02 million square meters.
Is it possible to have a rational, respectful and mature debate in Australia over refugees, considering the actual numbers of those arriving (by plane or boat) is so low? We are a country of asylum seekers and surely benefit from a well-managed program of immigration:
[A] United Nations report revealed Australia received 6,170 asylum applications in 2009 – 30 per cent more than in the previous year.
That is 1.6 per cent of the total around the world, where 50,000 applications were made to the United States and 42,000 to France.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says the Government’s softened stance on border protection is behind the rise.
“Clearly we have an Australian problem here and it’s a product of Australian policy forces,” he said.
But Immigration Minister Chris Evans has rejected the Opposition’s claims.
Senator Evans says Australia is getting more people because more people are fleeing Afghanistan.
But he says Australia’s proportion of the world total is still very low.
“We’re getting less than 2 per cent of those fleeing to industrialised countries, but we are seeing increased arrivals from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka,” he said.
“While the situation in those countries remains difficult, we’ll continue to see people arrive.”
Australia is ranked 16th out of 44 industrialised nations in terms of how many asylum seeker applications are received.
Last night’s release by UNHCR of 2009 statistics on asylum applications in industrialised countries emphasises that Australia’s share of global asylum applications remains very small, the Refugee Council of Australia says.
“In 2009, Australia received 6170 asylum applications, just 1.6% of the 377,160 applications received across 44 industrialised nations,” Refugee Council CEO, Paul Power, said. “Of the 44 nations, Australia was ranked 16th overall and was 21st on a per capita basis.
“No doubt some politicians will try to make political capital out of an increase in asylum applications in Australia of 1400 on the previous year. However, the applications received in Australia must be viewed in light of the numbers of the 286,680 applications received in Europe and the 82,270 applications received in North America.
“The industrialised countries with the largest number of asylum applications in 2009 were the United States (49,020), France (41,980), Canada (33,250), United Kingdom (29,840), Germany (27,650) and Sweden (24,190).
“Afghanistan was the single largest source country of people making asylum applications in industrialised countries. The 940 applications lodged in Australia by Afghans made up only 3.5% of the international total of 26,803. Afghans were four times more likely to lodge an application in Norway than in Australia.
“These figures should put to rest any claims that Australia is being ‘flooded’ by asylum seekers. The only flood we are seeing is of self-serving political rhetoric.
“It is clear that refugees continue to seek protection in stable democracies which respect international law and human rights. Even though Australia’s share of asylum seekers is small, Australia should still be proud to be included among those receiving countries.
“Our country is making a modest but valuable contribution to protecting people from persecution, a practical demonstration of Australians’ strong opposition to oppression.”
I confess feeling a twinge of pathos when I heard on Reshet Bet radio this morning how Benjamin Netanyahu told his AIPAC audience in Washington that the Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3000 years ago, would continue doing so today, and then hearing the crowd roar its delight.
These are not stupid people. They are serious people. They know, surely, that the construction in contention is in East Jerusalem neighborhoods that threaten to entirely cut off 300,000 Palestinians from their families and commercial opportunities in the West Bank. They know that any effort to keep these neighborhoods, or preserve the status quo, will result in Bosnian style violence. They know that this violence would further undermine American interests in the region.
They know that 41% of Israelis (its professional elites, disproportionately) oppose this construction, even if a slightly larger number favor it, so that, at best, continuing Netanyahu’s policy will tear the country apart. They know that Israeli governments have wasted $17 billion on a settlement project that might have been invested in Israel proper, including West Jerusalem. They know that Israel has no way of remaining a democracy if settlements continue and a peace deal, including partition of Jerusalem, is not forthcoming. (Kadima’s Haim Ramon followed the report of Netanyahu’s speech on Reshet Bet and made all of these points himself.)
They know that, as Ehud Olmert told me himself, he and Palestinian President Abbas had already held advanced discussions over a formula for sharing Jerusalem; that his formula entailed keeping the city physically intact, but allowing Palestinian neighborhoods to revert to the sovereignty of a Palestinian state, while the Holy Basin fell under the custodianship of Israel, the United States, and Arab countries, including Palestine. They know that Jerusalem would, ideally, be a capital for two highly interdependent states; and that whether or not Jerusalem will be an international city in any formal sense, it’s security in the long run will require the presence of international forces.
They also know, finally, that American Jews have about as much in common with King David’s iron age Israelites as American Chinese have with the Shang Dynasty. They know that it was the fanaticism and corruption of Judean kingdoms that lost Jerusalem. They know that, since then, normative Judaism has seen Jerusalem as a moral ideal, like Utopia, not a material place; and that Zionism was meant to valorize a modern Jewish nation, not an ancient land. They know that the Passover festival begins next week, and Jews everywhere will explain to their children why freedom is a universal principle. So what exactly were they cheering?
I do not mean to ask this question cynically. There is some kind of hole in the heart that backing Netanyahu over “Jerusalem” seems to be filling. There are intelligent and decent people gathered at AIPAC, and many young people who are eager to stand for something. What is it, other than the insistence that they, who “didn’t do anything,” fiercely admire Israelis who did something?
The Indian military has a new weapon against terrorism: the world’s hottest chilli.
After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized “bhut jolokia”, or “ghost chilli”, to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilise suspects, defence officials said on Tuesday.
The bhut jolokia was accepted by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world’s spiciest chilli. It is grown and eaten in India’s northeast for its taste, as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat.
It has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chilli’s spiciness. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2500 to 5000 Scoville units, while jalapeno peppers measure anywhere from 2500 to 8000.
“The chilli grenade has been found fit for use after trials in Indian defence laboratories, a fact confirmed by scientists at the Defence Research and Development Organisation,” Colonel R. Kalia, a defence spokesman in the northeastern state of Assam, said.
“This is definitely going to be an effective nontoxic weapon because its pungent smell can choke terrorists and force them out of their hide-outs,” R. B. Srivastava, the director of the Life Sciences Department at the New Delhi headquarters of the DRDO, said.
I was interviewed about the ramifications of the decision on yesterday’s current affairs program Hack on ABC’s Triple J:
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At least one country seems to be at least giving the impression that illegally using its passports in murder is unacceptable:
Britain is to expel an Israeli diplomat over the use of forged UK passports by the killers of a senior Hamas official in January.
The foreign secretary, David Miliband, will make a statement to the House of Commons this afternoon, blaming Israeli intelligence for the cloning of passports belonging to British citizens. The documents were carried by an assassination team that killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel.
British officials said Miliband would “request” the immediate departure of an Israeli diplomat, adding that they expect the request to be honoured.
“We think they mucked around with our passports, and we believe that requires consequences,” an official said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told AIPAC activists that “Jerusalem is not a settlement,” and also depicted the Palestinian Authority as not taking steps for peace.
During the comments on Jerusalem, the 8,000 American Israel Public Affairs Committee activists packed into the Washington Convention Center burst into lengthy cheers Monday evening, underscoring how the U.S.-Israel tensions over Israeli building in the eastern part of the city have yet to subside.
In her own address Monday morning to the annual policy conference, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state, described building in eastern Jerusalem as frustrating an “atmosphere of trust.”
Netanyahu, who had met Clinton earlier Monday, told the AIPAC crowd that building in Jerusalem was a natural Jewish right, but stopped short of pledging to keep launching new building projects.
“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 year ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today,” he said. “Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital.”
Netanyahu also depicted the Palestinian Authority as not taking steps for peace. “What has the Palestinian Authority done for peace?” Netanyahu said. “They have placed preconditions on peace talks, waged a relentless international campaign to undermine Israel’s legitimacy, and promoted the notorious Goldstone Report that falsely accuses Israel of war crimes.”
Netanyahu blamed the Palestinian Authority for continued incitement. ”A few days ago, in a public square near Ramallah, the Palestinians named this square after a terrorist who murdered 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, including the murder of an American photographer, Gail Rubin, and the Palestinian Authority did nothing.”
The Palestinian Authority has refused to rejoin talks with Israel until it imposes an absolute settlement freeze; the Netanyahu government has imposed a partial freeze and has improved movement in the West Bank.
“President Abbas, come and negotiate peace,” Netanyahu said. Peace, he said, was not sustainable when “Israel makes all the concessions and the Palestinian Authority makes none.”
In her speech, Clinton blamed the incident involving the square on the Palestinian Authority’s Hamas rivals.
Clinton’s address was hardly radical but certainly insisted that business as usual was now unacceptable in the Middle East. Hold back the money, Hillary, and then explain to the Jewish state that its behaviour is against peace. They’ll come begging soon enough when they can’t buy the latest weapon to kill Palestinians.
But perhaps the weirdest event of the day in Washington was this:
Rival Israel activists locked horns at Monday’s AIPAC conference in Washington as leading pro-Israel commentator Alan Dershowitz launched a blistering attack on pro-peace group J Street.
J Street representative Hadar Susskind was in the middle of an interview with Haaretz when Dershowitz let fly with a verbal onslaught against the group, which has openly criticized the Israeli government over its West Bank settlement policy.
Dershowitz accused J Street of dividing the Jewish community.
“I reject J Street because it spends more time criticizing Israel than supporting it,” he said. “They shouldn’t call themselves pro-Israel.
The combative Harvard law professor said that he too opposed settlements. “But I spend 80 per cent of my time supporting Israel,” he said.
He added: “It’s a shame that J Street has set itself up as an independent lobby.”
The sort of supporters J Street was attracting to its conferences showed that the group was damaging to Israel, Dershowitz said.
“If you invite [former U.S. Secretary of State] Zbigniew Brzezinski you are not pro-Israel,” Dershowitz told Susskind. “You should ask yourself why Norman Finkelstein loves you,” he said, referring to the noted leftwing American political commentator.
Responding to the attack, Susskind told Haaretz:
“No single community speaks with one voice. There are differences – but you won’t force other Jewish organizations to shut down just because of differences of opinion.”
Susskind told Haaretz that some fellow conference delegates had raised eyebrows, asking him what is was doing there.
“I’ve met people here that took part in our conference too. They are all Israel supporters and it doesn’t matter if they are at AIPAC or J Street,” he said.
He added: “We have disagreements with AIPAC that I don’t want to minimize. But we are all on the same side.”
And Dershowitz is still seen as a rational voice in the Jewish community? He supports AIPAC, who backs an ever-expanding occupation. Nice friends there.
The Knesset yesterday put Israeli democracy to shame when it passed the “Nakba Law” at first reading with a majority of 15 against eight.
If the law is passed at second and third readings it will be able to deprive bodies of state support and fine them if they mark Independence Day as a day of mourning, or if they hold memorial events for the Palestinians’ “catastrophe” in 1948.
The proposal adopted at the end of the Knesset’s winter session was “moderate” compared to the original one initiated by MK Alex Miller of Yisrael Beiteinu. It stipulates fining public institutions that hold activity “denying Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state,” and activity supporting armed struggle or terror against the state, inciting to racism or degrading the state’s flag or symbol.
The establishment of an “infiltrators’ city” next to the border with Egypt that would be built by illegal residents from Africa, which would be the only place they could live; hiring these refugees and immigrants to do state sponsored labor such as building the new border fence and paving roads for the benefit of the residents of southern Israel — these are just some of the proposals raised by MK Yaakov (Katzele) Katz of the National Union and chairman for the Knesset committee to examine the problems of the foreign workers, to battle the phenomenon of the infiltration of tens of thousands of refugees and African work immigrants into Israel.
And back in the heart of the American Jewish community, the New Yorker’s editor David Remnick doesn’t want to shock his readers too much – after all, American Jews have largely shut their eyes to what is truly happening in the West Bank and Gaza – but at least he manages this:
Without the creation of a viable contiguous Palestinian state, comprised of a land area equivalent to all of the West Bank and Gaza (allowing for land swaps), and with East Jerusalem as its capital, it is impossible to imagine a Jewish and democratic future for Israel. There is nothing the Israeli leadership could do to make the current fantasy of an indifferent American leadership become a reality faster than to get lost in the stubborn fantasy of sustaining the status quo.
Two GOP congressmen say most Republicans on the Hill now believe the Iraq war was a mistake, and “more than half the Republican caucus” believes the way in which the US entered the Afghanistan war was also a mistake.
Reps. Tom McClintock (R-CA) and Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) made the comments at a discussion panel at the Cato Institute on Thursday.
Going into Iraq “was a mistake because I thought we had to finish the job in Afghanistan,” Rohrbacher told the panel, echoing a popular Democratic talking point at the time.
“In retrospect, almost all of us think that was a horrible mistake,” Rohrbacher said. “Now that we know that it cost a trillion dollars, and all of these years, and all of these lives, and all of this blood … all I can say is everyone I know thinks it was a mistake to go in now.”
Google shut down its search service in the Chinese mainland last night after a two-month standoff with Beijing over online freedom and an alleged intrusion by hackers.
But Chinese authorities attacked the internet giant as “totally wrong” for its decision to shift its Chinese-language offering to Hong Kong.
The move allowed the firm to stop self-censoring the service, although the government’s filtering system would still prevent mainland users from seeing the results of many sensitive searches.
Google shocked the industry when it announced in January that it would end four years of self-censorship in China, acknowledging it might mean withdrawal.
The furore highlighted the challenges of doing business in China for western companies and drew a line under the era of unfettered optimism about the internet’s ability to change the country.
The company now believes it has found a legal way out, and said it intended to maintain its research, development and advertising sales business in China – which has the world’s largest internet population, of almost 400 million.
But it acknowledged that authorities could block the Chinese search service.
An unnamed official at the State Council Information Office – one of the bodies overseeing internet controls – said Google was “totally wrong” and had “violated its written promise” in remarks carried by the official news agency Xinhua. The swift response was highly unusual given that news of the decision broke in the middle of the night in China.
Google.cn now redirects visitors to google.com.hk – where they are greeted by a message reading: “Welcome to Google search in China’s new home.”
But the Chinese government’s internet filtering system, “the Great Firewall”, prevented results being returned when searches were conducted using sensitive words and phrases such as “Tiananmen Square 1989″ on google.com.hk. The internet connection was reset.
If they [Beijing] are smart they will just leave the situation as is and stop drawing media attention to their censorship practices. The longer this high profile fracas goes on, the greater Chinese Internet users awareness will be about the lengths to which their government goes to blinker their knowledge of the world. That may inspire more people to start learning how to use circumvention tools for getting around the censorship. Chinese censorship is only effective if a large percentage of the population isn’t very conscious of what they’re missing. As I like to explain it: if you’re born with tunnel vision you assume it’s normal until somehow you’re made aware that life without tunnel vision is both possible and much better. The longer this story remains in the headlines, the more people will become conscious of their tunnel vision and think about ways to eliminate it.
Australia’s 60 Minutes program is a tabloid current affairs program that seems to take an unusual interest in the Middle East conflict (here’s a good story from last year about the West Bank occupation in Palestine.)
Last Sunday they featured a piece about the economic and political isolation of Gaza. It didn’t pull any punches and outlined fairly accurately the reality of the situation under brutal Israeli and Egyptian bombardment.
The majority of Jewish Israelis are complicit in the perpetuation of the current state of affairs. When growing groups of conscientious people refuse to play the game of building a fictitious democratic sand castle on the shores of the Mediterranean, the Israeli Jew behaves like a spoiled rich brat, who would rather destroy his own castle than see natives share his world and his dreams.
A bogus news release that claimed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee had called on Israel “to immediately freeze new settlement projects” led to a incorrect report on NPR’s newscast this morning.
AIPAC has not issued any such statement, spokesman Josh Block tells us, and condemns whoever is responsible for spreading the misinformation.
The official-looking statement, e-mailed to NPR earlier today, appeared to come from Block. But, as a closer look reveals, the e-mail address did not quite match Block’s official AIPAC address.
Israel’s settlements in disputed territories have been atop the news again in recent weeks in large part because of its announcement — during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden to Israel earlier this month — of plans for more home construction in East Jerusalem.
This isn’t the first time in recent months that the news media have been used by advocates to spread disinformation. Last October, Reuters falsely reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had reversed position and was going to support major climate change legislation. That was not true. Proponents of the legislation had created a convincing website and press release that looked like they had the Chamber’s blessing.
