Opinion Editorials, September 2010

Illegal Israeli Settlements:

Symptom of the Occupation Disease

By Eileen Fleming
 
Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, September 20, 2010

 
Every Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and all are illegal under international law are ‘entitled’ to receive a “balancing grant” from Israel’s Interior Ministry to help balance their budget.
 
In 2009, the ministry allocated NIS 265 million in “balancing grants” to the West Bank colonies.
 
As a result, each settler received an average of NIS 115, which is 22% more than those who live within the Green Line.
 
Settlers also receive 22% more budget grants than other Israelis.
 
Altogether, the ministry distributed NIS 2.5 billion worth of balancing grants last year, which are meant to help less prosperous communities supply basic level of service to the colonists.
 
The West Bank settlements and communities within Israel, mainly those near the Lebanese and Gazan borders, are automatically inflated by 4 percent, because they are considered to have higher security expenses.
 
 
At a Red Sea resort on September 14, 2010, the second round of direct talks between the leaders of Israel and Palestine delved into some core issues, but President Obama’s special representative to the Middle East, George J. Mitchell, declined to say whether the two sides made any progress regarding Israel’s moratorium on settlement construction, which is due to expire on Sept. 26, 2010.
 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out extending the moratorium, and Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, has threatened to walk out of the talks if Israel allows it to expire.
 
 
Mr. Mitchell said the two leaders held substantive talks on other central topics, but he did not identify each one that was discussed, “but several were, in a very serious, detailed and extensive discussion,” Mr. Mitchell said.
 
Secretary of State Clinton “suggested that the two sides could find a creative solution to the impasse — steps that would allow the Palestinians to accept less than a full extension of the moratorium or that would enable Mr. Netanyahu to sell an extension to his domestic audience.
 
“That has to be understood as an effort by both the president and the prime minister to get over a hurdle posed by the expiration of the original moratorium.”
 
On March 16, 2010, I sent this Message to President Obama RE: Hillary and the Settlements
 
 
 
 
Via his YouTube channel, because what must be understood is that the settlements are but one symptom of a 62 year old disease of Military Occupation which has defied international law and denied basic human rights to the indigenous population.
 
 
 
SOURCES:
 
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/settlers-receive-22-more-budget-grants-than-other-israelis-probe-shows-1.313657
 
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/world/middleeast/15mideast.html?_r=2&ref=world


--
Eileen Fleming, Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
Staff Member of Salem-news.com
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com and Dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" and BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010
http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming 


Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine

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