Israel's grip on America

Great article. Heavy duty

Too bad Americans are Zombie marketing subjects. Give them a flashy cell phone, a happy meal, xanex and American Idol and lead them to the slaughter.

A racist Jewish state

By Haaretz Editorial

Every day the Knesset has the option of passing laws that will advance Israel as a democratic Jewish state or turn it into a racist Jewish state. There is a very thin line between the two. This week, the line was crossed. If the Knesset legal counselor did not consider the bill entitled "the Jewish National Fund Law" as sufficiently racist to keep it off the agenda, it is hard to imagine what legislation she will consider racist.

In 1995 the Supreme Court rescued the state from callously discriminating against its Arab citizens through the Ka'adan case, which prohibited the Israel Lands Administration from discriminating against non-Jews by leasing land through the Jewish Agency. Since then the attorney general has stated that such discrimination is unacceptable - also when it is carried out through the Jewish National Fund. The MKs were unable to accept this egalitarian ruling, and on Wednesday a large majority of 65 voted in favor of a preliminary reading permitting such discrimination. The bill is also backed by the head of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK Menahem Ben-Sasson.

Any explanation by the supporters of the bill seeking to beautify it should be rejected immediately by anyone who cares about the country's image. This bill reflects an abasement of the Zionist enterprise to lows never imagined in the Declaration of Independence. Even though the Jewish National Fund purchased the lands for the Jewish people in the Diaspora, the State of Israel has already been established and these lands must now serve all its citizens.

For those living for tomorrow and not the past, the aim is to create in Israel a healthy, progressive state where the needs of the two peoples should concern the leaders and legislators. The Jewish National Fund's land policy counters the interests of the state and cannot discriminate by law against the minority living in Israel.

The clause in the bill stating that "the leasing of JNF lands for the purpose of settling Jews will not be seen as unacceptable discrimination," even though it involves 13 percent of state-controlled lands and allows for further expressions of discrimination. For example, the establishment of a university only for Jews on JNF land, or a hospital, or a movie theater.

It is not surprising that MK Uri Ariel, who favors the redemption of lands by Jews also beyond the Green Line, is the person who initiated the Jewish National Fund bill. But the support of Benjamin Netanyahu, Ami Ayalon, Michael Eitan, Reuven Rivlin and Shalom Simhon is a very bad omen for the future of legislation in Israel. The Ka'adan case in the Supreme Court failed to bring about change. The power to discriminate was passed on to communities' acceptance committees that reject candidates by reverting to the clause of "being ill-suited to the community." If it was not for the Supreme Court's ruling in the Ka'adan case, it would have been possible also to reject non-Jewish candidates from Russia.

The Ka'adan ruling was exceptional in setting red lines, allowing a broad range for change, establishing norms and preventing the debasement of the rule book. It turns out that the Supreme Court is not omnipotent. In an instant, a racist Knesset can overturn its rulings.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/884358.html

Gaza's Economy, Already Fragile, May Collapse
Gaza's Economy, Already Fragile, May Collapse Unless Crossings Are Reopened, UN Reports
By Steven Erlanger
The New York Times
Thursday 19 July 2007

Jerusalem - Gaza's already weak economy could collapse unless its main commercial crossing with Israel is reopened, Gaza businessmen and United Nations officials warned on Wednesday.

The Karni crossing has been shut since June 12 because the Palestinians who operated it were affiliated with Fatah and fled after Hamas took over Gaza in bloody fighting. But both Israel and the Fatah leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, have been in no hurry to help Hamas by working to regularize Gaza's economic life.

Karen AbuZayd, commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which deals with Palestinian refugees, said in an interview, "Without Karni the Gaza economy will collapse unless it is opened for exports and not just for imports, so we don't punish this whole people."

Her agency is pressing both in Ramallah, Mr. Abbas's headquarters in the West Bank, and in Israel to reopen the crossing, she said. The agency is already providing food aid to 825,000 refugees in Gaza, while the World Food Program, another United Nations agency, is feeding an additional 250,000 people who are not refugees, she said.

"Further aid dependency is what we're worried about" among the population of 1.4 million to 1.5 million, said Ms. AbuZayd, an American.

Her Gaza director, John Ging, said, "If present closures continue, we anticipate that Gaza will become nearly a totally aid-dependent society, a society robbed of the possibility of self-sufficiency and the dignity of work."

While Israel is processing needed imports of food, fuel and medicine, the smaller crossings that are open require that containers be unloaded on one side of the border and reloaded on the other, adding $300 a ton to costs and restricting the flow.

Some commercial goods for grocery stores are being imported through deals between Israeli suppliers and Gazan merchants. But imports of building materials like concrete for construction and raw materials for factories have been held up, throwing Gazans out of work.

More than 68,000 workers have lost their jobs since mid-June, more than 80 percent of the private sector employment, said Nasser al-Hilou, a prominent Gazan businessman. The refugee agency halted $93 million worth of construction projects for lack of building materials, and put workers on leave.

And even if factories can produce, they cannot export. Gaza is full of vegetables and flowers grown for export markets that are being sold cheaply or are rotting.

"There is no starvation in Gaza, but there is no prosperity or life in Gaza either," Mr. Hilou said. "Gaza needs trade, not aid."

Mr. Ging appealed to the so-called quartet of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, which work for Middle East peace and plan to meet on Thursday in Portugal to help open Karni.

If Gaza's private sector goes bankrupt, he said, his agency will be unable to meet the demand.

In security terms, bringing items into Gaza is not a big problem for Israel. Exports are a different matter. Without Karni, with its sophisticated scanners, every item would have to be gone over carefully, if not by hand then with smaller scanners, to ensure that no explosives or weapons are being smuggled.

Having no Palestinians on the Gaza side of Karni whom Israel trusts has so far been an insurmountable problem for exports. Israel refuses to have any relationship with Hamas. Hamas has offered to bring Fatah back to Karni or to hire a Turkish company to operate the Palestinian side, but Israel says the Palestinians must resolve that issue.

For now political considerations seem most important, with Mr. Abbas trying to consolidate the West Bank with the help of Israel and the United States. Asked if Israel and Egypt were keeping Karni and the Rafah crossing from Egypt shut in part because Mr. Abbas asked them to, Miri Eisin, the spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, said: "Our clear-cut policy is to do it in coordination with President Abbas. We're not doing anything Abbas opposes, and we've opposed nothing he's asked us to do. We both agree on the complete sidelining of Hamas." In Ramallah, meeting with the European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, Mr. Abbas suggested on Wednesday that he was considering calling for early presidential and legislative elections through the Palestine Liberation Organization's Central Council. Mr. Abbas has called a rare meeting of the group for Wednesday evening and Thursday as a replacement for the elected legislature. Under the Palestinian basic law, only the legislature can mandate early elections.

It is hard to imagine how Mr. Abbas could hold an election without the agreement of Hamas, which controls Gaza and could also disrupt voting in the West Bank.

Qadura Fares, a politician close to the jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, said that Mr. Abbas was describing "an idea." He added: "It's a decision, but it doesn't mean the decision will be implemented. Any election has to be agreed upon by Hamas."

If Hamas feels further isolated in a declining, impoverished Gaza, the thinking goes, it may be more willing to allow new elections, so long as Mr. Abbas also puts the presidency at stake.

In Israel, the comptroller-general issued a stinging report, charging that Mr. Olmert and the army had failed to protect the civilian population during last summer's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. More than 40 Israeli civilians died in Hezbollah rocket attacks. The country's leadership, the report said, "failed severely in the decision-making process, preparedness and implementation of their treatment and care of the civilian population."

Mr. Olmert responded, "It is impossible to promise complete protection to every citizen" in a war of rockets and missiles.

He and his government are already unpopular because of the war but got what may be another reprieve on Wednesday when the Winograd commission, looking into the larger question of war management, said it might postpone its final report to allow people to respond first to accusations made against them.
--------------------------------------------------

Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Ramallah.

Thanks for the great articles folks!



The reason for the war in Iraq. Oil flowing to Israel.















http://nogw.com/ilrunshow.html