Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Knesset in 2009.
Photo by: Archive / Tess Scheflan
Israel showed the (click title to entry - thank you) international community on Tuesday that the country is ruled by a circus, not a responsible government with a policy. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the representatives of the world's nations from the UN podium that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is spreading illusions and silly talk about peace. There is no chance for a permanent settlement for a generation, Lieberman said, and it is necessary to "exchange" populated areas and adjust the state to its correct size. Or, in less diplomatic English, the Arab citizens of Israel must be expelled to the Palestinian side of the border....
Bulldozers get to work in the Israeli West Bank settlement of Revava on Sept. 27, 2010, the day after Israel's 10-month settlement construction freeze expired. (Wagdi Ashtiyeh / Flash90)
Photo by: Archive / Tess Scheflan
The Politics in Israel is hedious. The New York Times needs to Editorialize and Op-Ed this thing to death.
Arabs live in Israel. There is nothing to say the settlements being built cannot include Palestinian families. If they don't want their children attending local schools, Israel can arrange for safe buses to Palestinians schools.
Part to the chronic problem is that many passionate and brilliant people live in Israel and Palestine and it is the size of a dime for the populous.
UNITED NATIONS--Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday broke ranks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's peace strategy, telling the UN General Assembly that Israel should drop plans to negotiate a peace deal within the next year, and pursue a two-stage interim pact that could lead to decades of negotiations and the redrawing of Israel's borders to separate Arabs and Israelis....
UNITED NATIONS--Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday broke ranks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's peace strategy, telling the UN General Assembly that Israel should drop plans to negotiate a peace deal within the next year, and pursue a two-stage interim pact that could lead to decades of negotiations and the redrawing of Israel's borders to separate Arabs and Israelis....
This will be gruelling and difficult, but, Prime Minister Netanyahu is the man to get this done. He is not creating a dreamscape so much as trying to accommodate all the parties involved and this can be settled with a year !
Israel showed the (click title to entry - thank you) international community on Tuesday that the country is ruled by a circus, not a responsible government with a policy. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the representatives of the world's nations from the UN podium that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is spreading illusions and silly talk about peace. There is no chance for a permanent settlement for a generation, Lieberman said, and it is necessary to "exchange" populated areas and adjust the state to its correct size. Or, in less diplomatic English, the Arab citizens of Israel must be expelled to the Palestinian side of the border....
Bulldozers get to work in the Israeli West Bank settlement of Revava on Sept. 27, 2010, the day after Israel's 10-month settlement construction freeze expired. (Wagdi Ashtiyeh / Flash90)
NEWS ANALYSIS (click here)
Why Israel allowed the settlement freeze to expire
...Having offered the freeze unilaterally 10 months ago to coax the Palestinians back to the negotiating table and satisfy U.S. demands for an Israeli good-will gesture, the Israeli government sees itself as the accommodating party whose gesture was never reciprocated. Rather, it took the Palestinian nine months to agree to resume negotiations, leaving virtually no time for substantive progress before the freeze expired.
Then there are the political considerations: Netanyahu’s right-leaning coalition partners made clear that extending the freeze was a nonstarter. Perhaps most important, however, the freeze was seen by many Israelis as unfair.
The vast majority of the 300,000 or so Jews who live in the West Bank are families living in bedroom communities within easy commuting distance of Jerusalem or metropolitan Tel Aviv. While some Israelis moved to the settlements for ideological reasons, for many the motivating factor was economic: Housing was much cheaper in the West Bank than in Israel proper....
There is a lady I am thinking off that intimately understands these problems. She would be the best ambassador than anyone, to end any 'silliness.' She paid a visit to New York recently. I hope she is recuperating well and will be back to home and as gracious as ever.
Jordan's Queen Rania undergoes treatment for irregular heart rhythm (click here)
By the CNN Wire Staff
September 27, 2010 2:24 a.m. EDT
Jordan's Queen Rania was recuperating in a New York hospital Monday after she underwent a medical procedure to correct an irregular heart rhythm. "The procedure went very smoothly and Her Majesty is well and in good spirits," the Royal Court in Amman said in a statement Monday.She will remain hospitalized for two nights while she recovers before returning home later in the week, the palace said.
Rania was in New York with her husband, who is attending the United Nations General Assembly...
Jordan’s King Abdullah II ‘cozies up to’ Leonardo DiCaprio at UN (click here)
September 28th, 2010
New York, Sep 28 – Leonardo DiCaprio and Jordan’s King Abdullah II were spotted together at the UN General Assembly.
The king and his beautiful wife, Queen Rania dined at The Lion while DiCaprio, Cindy Crawford and husband Rande Gerber sat at a nearby table.
“King Abdullah went out for a smoke during dinner and told the security outside, ‘If my daughter finds out that I’m sitting next to Leo DiCaprio, she’ll never forgive me’,” the New York Post quoted a spy as saying.
And when the King went back inside, he approached the actor and posed for two photos with him, even though cameras are banned in the restaurant. (ANI)
Appearing on ABC's "This Week," Rania said the goal of the negotiations was to end an untenable and volatile situation that was fueling extremism throughout the Middle East.
"The Palestinian people and the Israeli people need to see change -- tangible change in their lives very soon," said Rania.
Rania said the most positive development would be that Israeli settlement expansion remained on hold after the moratorium expired. "What matters to me is what actually happens on the ground," she said. "If both sides are still talking and in the spirit of peace these settlements are not expanded upon, then I think both sides need to be flexible."
The queen also predicted that U.S. President Obama's flagging popularity and prestige in the Muslim world would "skyrocket" if the current talks produced a meaningful agreement between the longtime adversaries.
by : Administrator
Published : Sunday, September 26 2010 14:02
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Jordan's Queen Rania urged Israel and the Palestinians to keep talking as the moratorium on new Israeli housing in the disputed region expired.Appearing on ABC's "This Week," Rania said the goal of the negotiations was to end an untenable and volatile situation that was fueling extremism throughout the Middle East.
"The Palestinian people and the Israeli people need to see change -- tangible change in their lives very soon," said Rania.
Rania said the most positive development would be that Israeli settlement expansion remained on hold after the moratorium expired. "What matters to me is what actually happens on the ground," she said. "If both sides are still talking and in the spirit of peace these settlements are not expanded upon, then I think both sides need to be flexible."
The queen also predicted that U.S. President Obama's flagging popularity and prestige in the Muslim world would "skyrocket" if the current talks produced a meaningful agreement between the longtime adversaries.
Thank you, Queen Rania. Her birthright gives her a truly unique place in all this. She is a powerful woman. She loves her people and those that surround her chosen country with the marriage to King Abdullah bin Al-Hussein.
In some ways, it is almost as though God has 'fixed' the entire situation in one marriage.
Rania Al-Yassin was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents from Tulkarm. Tulkarm is a rather unique place. If I may?
In some ways, it is almost as though God has 'fixed' the entire situation in one marriage.
Between games and propaganda: the removal of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank (click here)
19 April 2008
...A close examination of the 44 roadblocks which existed and were removed reveals that most of them had no implications whatsoever for Palestinians’ freedom of movement. Only 5 of these 44 obstacles were classified by the U.N. as “significant” for Palestinians living in the area. The remaining obstacles were classified as of “little”, “no”, or “questionable” significance, often noting that there were other major roadblocks nearby, that they were located in insignificant areas (such as open fields) or even that some had been built and removed on the same day.Building roadblocks in the morning, removing them in the afternoon
This is what happened in the area of Tulkarm, more specifically on the roads connecting the villages of Bal’a to Anabta and Dhinnaba to Izbat Abu Khmeish.
On 31 March, Israeli soldiers went to this area and closed both roads by blocking them with stones and sand, preventing anyone from getting through. The main roads in between the villages were closed as well as the smaller alternative dirt roads, leaving would-be travellers no option but to return from where they came.
Later that day, soldiers returned to the area and removed a few of these roadblocks. The Israeli army then published an official statement explaining that they had removed the promised number of roadblocks. Their list included the roadblocks near Tulkarm established in the morning and removed in the afternoon.
The Israeli statement obviously did not mention the absurd character of these roadblock removals, neither did it mention that several roadblocks on the road between Dhinnaba and Izbat Abu Khmeish were also established on the same day, but were not removed....
http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_pcbs/populati/pop03.aspx
A Palestinian city in the Tulkarm Governorate in the extreme northwestern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Satistics, Tulkarm city and the adjacent refugee camp had a population of approximately 58,962 inhabitants at mid-year 2006.
http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_pcbs/populati/pop03.aspx
Location of Tulkarm on more detailed maps. I am sure the Queen of Jordan would take offense to any 'gaming by the Israeli political system of people in Palestine after all.
Its land area consists of 28,793 dunam. A dunam is "forty standard paces in length and breadth", (Origin of measure is the Ottoman Empire and is still used today.) A pace? Oh, a pace. Yes. Well.
So considering a pace can be no more than two feet long, maybe slightly more, that would be 28,793 multiplied by 2 feet and then multiplied by 40. That would be about 230,344 feet. I am assuming that is square feet, but, an authority in Palestine would have to validate that. A fairly small hamlet.
Sometimes it takes a Lady you know? I mean to cut through the politics of all this mess.
Perhaps when she is feeling better, she could join the King and bring some very needed insight to the depth of meaning the land has to Palestinians and how they need to be settled and feel a sense of BELONGING and sincere purpose other than being 'pawns' in Israel's political theater. Just a thought.
