The Jerusalem Post reports: Around 70 West Bank settlements were on the list of communities eligible for housing and development grants that the cabinet approved on Sunday. Most of them – 57 – are settlements located outside the boundary of the security barrier’s planned route. Israel has promised the international community that it would not provide special incentives for settlement development and construction. [...] According to the Prime Minister’s Office, [...]
Related posts: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2012/01/31/israel-continues-to-offer-financial-incentives-to-move-to-settlements/
Today, being Christmas, the Western press loves to publish articles detailing the difficulties Jesus, Mary and the Wise Men all would have had if they had lived under Israeli occupation. You can file this issue under “if you don’t like the coverage, change the policy.”
Related posts: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/26/the-annual-if-jesus-were-born-in-bethlehem-today-christmas-articles/
The jostle for the Republican nomination to challenge Barack Obama, when it comes to Israel, is quickly becoming a race to the bottom.
Related posts:Tags: 2012 US Presidential Election, Israel, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Occupation, Op-ed, Palestinians, Republican Party, Rick Perry, Settlements, USA, Zionism Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/16/politicians-pandering-does-no-good-for-israel/
A group of 50 settlers broke into an IDF base in the West Bank and destroyed property. These super-extreme hilltop youth are everything that’s wrong with the settlement enterprise, and exemplify the huge problem Israel faces.
Related posts: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/14/idf-base-in-west-bank-attacked-by-settlers/
Ha’aretz’s editorial today has slammed the IDF’s process of military investigations, with a report by Yesh Din showing that 96.5 per cent of complaints are closed without an indictment. They ask, “When it comes to shooting a Palestinian, pulling the trigger does not come with a real fear of having to answer to the law … Will the death of Mustafa Tamimi be added to the statistics that show that in Israel, the life of a Palestinian is cheap?”
Tags: Ha'aretz, Halamish, IDF, Israel, Mustafa Tamimi, Nabi Saleh, Non-violent movement, Occupation, Settlements, Settlers, West Bank Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/13/on-protestors-death-haaretz-says-in-israel-the-life-of-a-palestinian-is-cheap/
Palestinian protestor Mustafa Tamimi has died of the injuries sustained by him during a protest at Nabi Saleh in the West Bank. He was hit, reportedly at close range, by a tear gas canister, as part of the weekly protests in against the seizure of the village’s spring by local settlers. The IDF, it seems, instead of helping the Palestinians in Nabi Saleh get their spring and olive groves back, as the Supreme Court has ordered to happen, is using excessive force to quash legitimate demonstration against the slow disappearance of their land. This seems a perfect example of the erosion of morals and democracy in Israelis and in Israeli society as a result of the ongoing occupation.
Related posts:Tags: B'tselem, Halamish, IDF, Israel, Mustafa Tamimi, Nabi Saleh, Non-violent movement, Occupation, Settlements, Settlers, West Bank Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/12/palestinian-protestor-killed-by-idf-in-nabi-saleh/
Despite living on the same land for sixty years, Israel is forcibly moving a Bedouin tribe to make way for an expanded settlement. Why can’t Israel respect that these people have been living there for sixty years and deserve to be treated with justice and compassion? Indeed, it’s also interesting to reflect on how Diaspora Jewish teenagers interact with Israeli Bedouins while on Birthright-style tours to Israel — they are the charming people of the desert, the nomads that Israel loves and respects as contributors to the wider Israeli culture, integral parts of society, etc. And yet, here they are being shafted so that Ma’ale Adumim can be expanded and the hopes of future Palestinian statehood further diminished. What a shame.
Related posts:Tags: Arab-Israelis, Bedouin, Diaspora Jewry, Israel, Jerusalem, Ma'ale Adumim, Minority rights, Occupation, Palestinian Territories, Settlements, Taglit, West Bank, Young Jews Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/12/07/israel-to-forcibly-relocate-20-bedouin-communities-to-expand-a-settlement/
Gershom Gorenberg in tomorrow’s New York Times: “The reason for Israel to reach a two-state solution and withdraw from the West Bank is not only to reach peace with the Palestinians living in what is now occupied territory. It is to ensure that Israel itself remains a democracy — one with a Jewish majority and a guarantee of equality for its Arab minority. Israel does not need to bring the war from Samaria home. It needs to leave that war in the past.” It is impossible that the immorality of the occupation and the lack of democratic values currently in place in the West Bank can remain completely separated from what is happening on the other side of the Green line, in ‘democratic’ Israel. It will, and indeed already is, seeping into Israel ‘proper’. Not great news for the future of a Jewish and democratic Israel.
Related posts:Tags: Arab-Israelis, Democracy, Gershom Gorenberg, Human Rights, Kadima, Knesset, New Israel Fund, NGOs, Occupation, Palestinian Territories, Settlements, West Bank, Yisrael Beiteinu, Zionism Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/11/26/not-letting-the-occupation-infiltrate-israeli-democracy/
Migron, of course, has been deemed illegal by the Supreme Court under Israeli law, not just questionably legal (at the very least) under international law. So what Lieberman’s saying here to Bibi is: either throw out respect for the law; or throw out your government, because if I leave, it’s going to collapse.
Related posts: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/11/23/lieberman-dismantle-illegal-outpost-and-ill-leave-the-coalition/
According to an Israeli economist the costs of the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories has ballooned hugely — to around US$100bn in security costs and subsidies to the settlements. It costs Israel more than US$6bn a year to continue the settlement enterprise, and includes an average budget of $22,522 on each settler, double the amount Israel spends on non-settlers.
Related posts: Permalink: http://liamgetreu.com/2011/10/09/the-economics-of-israels-settlement-enterprise/
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