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Ear to the Ground

Depriving Palestinians in the West Bank

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Posted on Dec 19, 2010
Flickr / Tanya N

Graffiti on the Israeli-made security fence in the occupied West Bank.

Even while it builds settlements on Palestinian territory, Israel is actively preventing Palestinian development in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem by denying basic infrastructure such as electricity and running water to Palestinian communities, according to a report from the group Human Rights Watch. —JCL

Reuters:

Israel is preventing Palestinian development in parts of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem while pouring funding into Jewish settlements, the Human Rights Watch group said on Sunday.

Its 166-page report focused on Israeli policies in areas of the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority does not hold any sway under interim peace deals and in East Jerusalem, annexed to Israel after its capture in a 1967 war.

“Israeli policies in the West Bank harshly discriminate against Palestinian residents, depriving them of basic necessities while providing lavish amenities for Jewish settlements,” the New York-based organization said.

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moonraven's avatar

By moonraven, December 21, 2010 at 7:40 pm Link to this comment

Now there are posters on this site who seem to think they know absolutely everything:  even secrets yet not flowing through the wikileaks pipeline.

To wit:  Both the US and Canada have sold nuclear technology to India.  France sold nuclear technology to both Pakistan and Israel, and Pakistan sold it to whoever shelled out for it—we still don’t know the whole list.

I am anti-nuclear myself—possibly since I live with a chronic illness caused by proximity to the nefarious Hanford plutonium plant.  But more importantly, because I believe in life—not death.

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Robert's avatar

By Robert, December 21, 2010 at 5:21 pm Link to this comment

WHICH COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE-EAST HAS UNDECLARED NUCLEAR WEAPONS?


WHICH COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE-EAST HAS UNDECLARED STOCKPILES OF BIOLOGICAL & CHEMICAL WEAPONS?


WHICH COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE-EAST HAS NO OUTSIDE INSPECTIONS OF ITS UNDECLARED WMD STOCKPILES?


This BBC Documentary “Israel’s Secret Weapon” was aired on LINK TV... so click on link below to watch this outstanding documentary.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-234685330662058240&q=israel+secret+weapon&total=107&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1#docid=-2395002075547394719

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Robert's avatar

By Robert, December 21, 2010 at 5:00 pm Link to this comment

Report: Secret document affirms U.S.-Israel nuclear partnership

According to Army Radio, the U.S. has reportedly pledged to sell Israel materials used to produce electricity, as well as nuclear technology and other supplies.

By Haaretz Service, Barak Ravid and Reuters

07.07.10


Israel’s Army Radio reported on Wednesday that the United States has sent Israel a secret document committing to nuclear cooperation between the two countries.

According to Army Radio, the U.S. has reportedly pledged to sell Israel materials used to produce electricity, as well as nuclear technology and other supplies, despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Other countries have refused to cooperate with Israel on nuclear matters because it has not signed the NPT, and there has been increasing international pressure for Israel to be more transparent about its nuclear arsenal.

Army Radio’s diplomatic correspondent said the reported offer could put Israel on a par with India, another NPT holdout which is openly nuclear-armed but in 2008 secured a U.S.-led deal granting it civilian nuclear imports.

During Tuesday’s meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, the two leaders discussed the global challenge of nuclear proliferation and the need to strengthen the nonproliferation system.

They also discussed calls for a conference on a nuclear-free Middle East, which was peoposed during the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NTP) review conference in New York and which Netanyahu said he would not take part in because it intends to single out Israel.

Obama informed Netanyahu that, as a co-sponsor charged with enabling the proposed conference, the United States will insist that such a conference have a broad agenda to include regional security issues, verification and compliance and discussion of all types of weapons of mass destruction.

Obama emphasized the conference will only take place if all countries “feel confident that they can attend,” and said that efforts to single out Israel would make the prospects of such a conference unlikely.

The two leaders agreed to work together to oppose efforts to single out Israel at the IAEA General Conference in September.

Obama emphasized that the U.S. will continue to work closely with Israel to ensure that arms control initiatives and policies do not detract from Israel’s security, and “support our common efforts to strengthen international peace and stability.”

Dan Meridor, Netanyahu’s deputy prime minister in charge of nuclear affairs, said Obama’s endorsement was not new but that its public expression - two months after Washington supported Egypt’s proposal at a review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - was significant.

Obama’s statement “was without a doubt a special and significant text. It was important for us, and it was important for the region,” Meridor said.

Israel neither confirms nor denies having nuclear weapons under an “ambiguity” strategy billed as warding off foes while avoiding public provocations that can spark regional arms races.”



http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-secret-document-affirms-u-s-israel-nuclear-partnership-1.300554

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By Inherit The Wind, December 21, 2010 at 3:24 pm Link to this comment

As usual Robert combines turning a molehill into a mountain and adds a dose of the unbelievable.

Let’s start with the unbelievable:
Not ONE nation that has developed nuclear weapons has ever, as a policy, sold or given that technology to another nation.  Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, or North Korea.  Nor have the nations who have the technology and capability, such as Japan, Germany, Italy, Canada, or the rest of the techno world.  The ability to make a nuclear device is the most jealously guarded ability in the world because it can always BE USED AGAINST YOU!

Yet Robert would have us believe on the slimmest of sources that Israel, which HAS NOT EVEN CONFIRMED ITS ARSENAL did so!

But then, the supposed technology is SO flimsy that it almost doesn’t matter anyway.  A trigger device, some Tritium.  Whoopee! You can buy a device containing Tritium in New York City—It’s called a wrist watch…Omega and others have Tritium-filled watches because they glow in the dark really, really well.

Last, Google John Aristotle Phillips. Here’s the key line from Wikipedia: “n 1977, he became known as the A-Bomb Kid while attending Princeton University as a junior undergraduate when he designed a nuclear weapon using publicly-available books and papers.”

1977, a junior at Princeton, only 2 years after this super-secret “conspiracy”.

So, from every angle we examine it from, Robert’s article is clearly discreditable bullshit.  There is no aspect that stands up to scrutiny.  None.

Typical.

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By felicity, December 21, 2010 at 12:22 pm Link to this comment

Depriving Palestinians?  What a revelation. 
Palestinians have been living separated or quarantined
as the backdrops of their daily experience for over 60
years.

Robert - And of course Israel has refused to sign the
NPT, instead invoking something called the Policy of
Deliberate Ambiguity which basically says it’s nuclear
and other WMD programs (and stockpiles) are nobody’s
business.

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By Bethsharon, December 21, 2010 at 11:38 am Link to this comment

My Links aren’t linking, so, re: nefesh, to frecklefever, on December 21: Nicely writ.

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nefesh's avatar

By nefesh, December 21, 2010 at 11:24 am Link to this comment

By frecklefever, December 21 at 3:59 pm THE ANCIENT ISRAELIS WOULD ELECT A YOUNG MAN TO BE OFFERED TO GOD AS A SACRIFICE
(HOLOCAUST) FOR THE SINS OF THE..TRIBE..ONCE DEAD HE WAS CONSIDERED SANCTIFIED AND
THE LAMB OF GOD…AND TO RESURRECT HIM..HE WAS CANNIBALIZED AND WOULD LIVE AGAIN
THRU THE LIVING…

Congratulations, Scheer. You’ve instigated a bona-fide blood libel instead of the usual bigoted diatribes.

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By frecklefever, December 21, 2010 at 10:59 am Link to this comment

THE ANCIENT ISRAELIS WOULD ELECT A YOUNG MAN TO BE OFFERED TO GOD AS A SACRIFICE
(HOLOCAUST) FOR THE SINS OF THE..TRIBE..ONCE DEAD HE WAS CONSIDERED SANCTIFIED AND
THE LAMB OF GOD…AND TO RESURRECT HIM..HE WAS CANNIBALIZED AND WOULD LIVE AGAIN
THRU THE LIVING…THE CATHOLIC CHURCH MASS IS THE SYMBOLIC RESURRRECTION OF CHRIST
BY THE LAITY EATING HIS FLESH AND DRINKING HIS BLOOD..CALLED HOLY COMMUNION…THE
POINT IS AMERICA AND ISRAEL ARE AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE WILLING TO SACRIFCE
PALESTINIANS..FOR THEIR OWN TWISTED REASONINGS..BUT THE REAL KICKER IS GOD IS NOT ON
THEIR SIDE…AND YES OBAMA IS NETANYAHUS BITCH..

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By Bethsharon, December 21, 2010 at 10:46 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I tried to link to msms, no luck. Aside from that, I’m unsure if people talk TO each other on this list. (That’s NOT a criticism, lists have different uses.)

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Robert's avatar

By Robert, December 21, 2010 at 1:16 am Link to this comment

Hypocrisy Gone Nuclear

Israel, Obama and the Bomb


By CONN HALLINAN

December 15, 2010


This past July, a nuclear-armed nation, in violation of an international treaty, clandestinely agreed to supply uranium to a known proliferator of nuclear weapons.  China and North Korea? No, the United States and Israel.

In a July 8 article entitled “Report: Secret Document Affirms U.S. Israeli Nuclear Partnership,” the Israeli daily Haaretz revealed that the Obama Administration will begin transferring nuclear fuel to Israel in order to build up Tel Aviv’s nuclear stockpile.

There is profound irony in the fact that while the U.S. and some of its allies are threatening military action against Iran for enriching uranium, Washington is bypassing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while aiding Israel’s nuclear weapons program, the only country in the world that has actually helped another nation construct and test a nuclear device.

The saga starts with a box of tea that arrived in South Africa in 1975.

This past May, researcher Sasha Polakow-Suransky uncovered declassified South African documents indicating that in 1975 the Israeli government offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime. Israeli officials apparently tried to block the declassification of the documents, but failed.

According to the British Guardian, then Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres—currently president—negotiated with Pretoria to supply South Africa with nuclear warheads for Israel’s Jericho missile. Peres dismissed Polakow-Suransky’s book—“The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa”—as having “no basis in reality for the claims.”

But according to Allister Sparks in Business Day (South Africa), the Israeli offer “to sell nuclear warheads to SA during apartheid is almost certainly correct—despite denials by key figures in both countries.” Sparks should know, because he was told what was in that box of tea by the Rand Mail’s lead investigative reporter, Marvyn Rees.

“I can state this because the disclosures closely corroborate information I was given 32 years ago when the late Echel Rhoodie, then secretary of information, told the Rand Daily, of which I was then editor, how he and Gen. Hendrik van den Bergh, head of the South African Bureau of State Security, had brought what he called ‘the trigger’ for a nuclear bomb from Israel,” Sparks writes.

Sparks has remained silent all these years because he made a promise to Rhoodie not to reveal the conversation, and because he was afraid of the “draconian Defense Act” that would have subjected him to prosecution. But since Rhoodie and the general are dead, the Act repealed, and the story revealed, he felt it was time to come in from the cold.

According to Polakow-Suransky the warhead offer fell through because the parties were worried that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin would not go along. But Sparks argues that the “more likely explanation” was that Israel offered a “trigger,” which was cheaper, and ultimately more useful to Pretoria because it would allow the South Africans to produce their own nuclear weapons.

Apparently the Israelis also supplied South Africa with tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that enhances the explosive power of nuclear weapons.

According to Sparks, the South African general and Rhoodie packed the trigger into a tea box and put it on a South African Airways plane as hand luggage.

~~~~~~~~~

Click on link for the rest of the story:

http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan12152010.html

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By Bethsharon, December 20, 2010 at 7:51 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Yes, it’s the most basic of health issues: a very small quantity of water available to Palestinians (literally less than 10%) is fresh. Sea water—salt—leaches into water tables, aquifers, and there’s inadequate-to-no desalination happening. I think I heard that the related infrastructure will *soon* be addressed.

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By FRTothus, December 20, 2010 at 3:37 pm Link to this comment

The crimes of Israel are crimes against every one of us.

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By reynolds, December 20, 2010 at 1:47 pm Link to this comment

israel invokes the name as rationale for ethnic
cleansing.

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By Observer, December 20, 2010 at 5:06 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

In any other country, the current American bribe to Israel, and the latter’s reluctance to accept it, in return for even a temporary end to the theft of somebody else’s property would be regarded as preposterous. Three billion dollars’ worth of fighter bombers in return for a temporary freeze in West Bank colonisation for a mere 90 days? Not including East Jerusalem – so goodbye to the last chance of the east of the holy city for a Palestinian capital – and, if Benjamin Netanyahu so wishes, a rip-roaring continuation of settlement on Arab land. In the ordinary sane world in which we think we live, there is only one word for Barack Obama’s offer: appeasement. Usually, our lords and masters use that word with disdain and disgust.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-an-american-bribe-that-stinks-of-appeasement-2139101.html

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By msms, December 20, 2010 at 2:47 am Link to this comment

Israel uses water as a means of ethnic cleansing. Check it out. Boycott apartheid Israel.

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moonraven's avatar

By moonraven, December 19, 2010 at 7:31 pm Link to this comment

Israel OFF the planet, NOW!

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