Posted on 06/30/2009 5:51:25 AM PDT by SJackson
In the West Bank, Suburb or Settlement?
For Israelis, Homes; For Palestinians, a Wall
MODIIN ILLIT, West Bank, June 29 -- Chaim Hanfling knows a lot about this settlement's population boom. Six of his 11 siblings have moved here from Jerusalem in recent years to take advantage of the lower land prices, and at age 29, he has added four children of his own.
Located just over the Green Line that marks the territory occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the booming ultra-Orthodox community, home to more than 41,000 people, shows why the settlement freeze demanded by the Obama administration is proving controversial for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and also why Palestinian officials are insisting on it.
Amid their gleaming, modern apartment buildings, with Tel Aviv visible on the horizon, residents say they have little in common with the people who have hauled mobile homes to hilltops in hopes of deepening Israel's presence in the occupied West Bank. But they are having lots of babies -- and they expect the bulldozers and cement mixers to keep supplying larger schools and more housing, a typically suburban demand that the country's political leadership is finding hard to refuse.
"We don't feel this is a settlement," said Hanfling. "We're in the middle of the country. It's like Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan," another Israeli city.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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ML/NJ
The hidden agenda of any demand to freeze “natural growth” is obvious and nefarious.
If you live in a neighborhood you like and have a two bedroom apartment/house, and you have a second or third child, you will need to move. If there is no new construction in these booming neighborhoods you will not find a bigger space. Consequently you will have to move to a different neighborhood.
This freeze on all construction is not an attempt merely to stop expansion. It is an attempt to begin to empty these areas. Since Israel has no intention of ever vacating areas like Modi’in (or Maale Adumim which is a suburb of Jerusalem, the way Georgetown is a suburb of Wash DC, even closer approximately ten minutes away from the center of Jerusalem) what is the point?
The point is that Obama, the EU, Quartet, and UN intend to force Israel to vacate them. These entities are not looking for a negotiated settlement. They are dictating terms in advance in favor of the Palestinians.
The very laws that make these “settlements” illegal were drafted in advance to favor the Palestinians. Why does everyone like them so much? They have cousins with oil. Oddly enough, the quality of their lives is vastly better for being “occupied” than it ever would have been under Jordanian or Egyptian rule, and better than the PA can ever make it, left to its own policies of graft, theft and extortion.
Personally I think the nefarious goes beyond the question of natural growth. The US shouldn't support the creation of an apartheid state. The only questions regarding the West Bank should be which areas Israel is going to annex, and for Jews living in unannexed areas, the establishment of a just government which will protect their lives and freedom. That should have been the issue in Gaza too. Why would we support a political system that expels Jews from it's territory?
pashute, on June 7, 2007, said:ML/NJIn fact this is one of the LEGAL settelements.
Bought with good money (and a lot of it for that) during the Turkish (Automan) regime, this is the location of the Ein Tzurim kibbutz, which had fallen to the Jordanians during the Israel independance war in 1948. Its inhabitants were taken as prisoners to Irbid, Jordan and returned to Israel about a year after the war was over.
Before its fall to the Jordanians, a group of 35 young students from the Hebrew University set out from Hartuv (now Bet Shemesh) to bring military aid to the four Gush Etzion villages under siege. They were discovered in the early morning, and faught to death against a makeshift army from the village of Nahalin. Later in the day, a British army jeep came to investigate, and a rumor was spread that the Israelis had revenged with a massacre in the Nahalin village. Following this the bodies were desecrated. The 35 are known in Israel as the Lamed Heh (letters marking the number 35).
The original residents of Ein Tzurim, when back from prison in Jordan, founded the Southern Kibbutz Ein-Tzurim near Gaza and Sederot. In the Six Day War of 1967, Israel re-captured the land and around 1975 the settelement was re-established with its new name.
The kibbutz is a Jewish religious community, and as far as I know, although the "bad history" between them and the Arab neighbors, they are doing business and getting along well.
One famous factory in the Kibbutz is the tour-cooking utilities factory "Amgazit". Every person Jew or Arab in Israel has one. I think they sell worldwide with a different name.
Glad someone added the correct information.
“Personally I think the nefarious goes beyond the question of natural growth. The US shouldn’t support the creation of an apartheid state. The only questions regarding the West Bank should be which areas Israel is going to annex, and for Jews living in unannexed areas, the establishment of a just government which will protect their lives and freedom. That should have been the issue in Gaza too. Why would we support a political system that expels Jews from it’s territory? “
well said
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