Israel demolishes two houses in East Jerusalem
Mon Mar 2, 2009 10:21am EST
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel demolished two Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem Monday, a day before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to launch an initial effort to shore up the foundations of a shaky peace process.
Two bulldozers flattened a home owned by Mahmoud al-Abbasi in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israeli authorities said the house was built without a municipal permit.
Palestinians say building permission is nearly impossible to obtain from Israel's Jerusalem city hall and say this is part of a policy to drive out Arab residents.
The Jerusalem municipality said last week it planned to demolish 88 homes, though not immediately, that were built without permits in another section of Silwan, near the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, to create a public garden.
"The entire neighborhood is threatened with this. We asked for a permit but we were turned down. Eight of us lived in this house," Abbasi said after his home was torn down.
Hatem Abdel Qader, a Palestinian Authority adviser on Jerusalem affairs, said the Israeli move was "a message to Palestinians that house demolitions will continue."
An Israeli police spokesman said an "illegally built" Palestinian house was also destroyed in Jabal Mukaber, another East Jerusalem neighborhood.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem its "eternal and united capital" but has not won international recognition of its claim.
If you don't believe it check out the the 'City of David' digs, featuring excavation of the ancient Silwan aqueduct tunneling around and under the Old City. Israeli archaeologist Yoni Mizrachi says the Israel Antiquities Authority relies on ElAd for funding and has given control over the archaeological sites in Silwan to ElAd; According to Mizrachi, 'Ir David' is "one of the few sites operated by private organisations and it is the only one run by a right-wing organisation." In an Op-Ed for The Guardian, Palestinian rights activist Yigal Bronner (faculty of the University of Chicago), says of the Israel Antiquities Authority: "the same government agency that in 1997 warned against handing over the site to the settlers is now Elad's happy subcontractor."
The Palestinian Authority says it wants East Jerusalem as the capital of the state it hopes to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Clinton, who attended a Gaza reconstruction conference in Egypt Monday, was to arrive in Israel later in the day.
She was due to meet Israeli leaders Tuesday and Palestinian leaders Wednesday, taking her first steps in the region to get peace negotiations moving after the 22-day Gaza offensive Israel launched in December.
The future of Jerusalem is a major bone of contention in peace talks re-started by the Bush administration in late 2007. Some 500,000 Jews and 260,000 Palestinians live in the city.
So we now see the US offering monetary assistance to Palestine. This after sitting on their hands while Gaza's infrastructure was deliberately destroyed and civilian deaths topped 1000. This looks like a deja vu to me where Bu$hco offered $3 million to Lebanon, while Kuwait offered a$800 million and Saudi Arabia's offer topped 1 billion.
US offers $900,000,000 in aid to Palestine
march 2, 2009
(CNN) -- The United States has offered more than $900 million to help the Palestinian people, particularly those in Gaza, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Monday.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends Gaza donors conference in Egypt on Monday.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends Gaza donors conference in Egypt on Monday.
"Only by acting now can we turn this crisis into an opportunity that moves us closer to our shared goals," Clinton said at a Gaza donors conference hosted by Egypt in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
"By providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza, we also aim to foster conditions in which a Palestinian state can be fully realized."
She said the U.S. aid package -- which must be approved by Congress -- has been "designed in coordination with the Palestinian Authority" to make sure the money "does not end up in the wrong hands."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed aid money must be accompanied by a "comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors," urging all concerned to "break the cycle of rejection and resistance":
While at the same time we see Israel proceeding with business as ususal.
Israel plans for 73,000 housing units in West Bank
Mon 2 Mar 2009
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli authorities have made plans for 73,000 new housing units in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, although only a fraction of the proposals has been approved, an anti-settlement group said Monday.
The information, in a new report by Peace Now, indicated that Israel's next government, which right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to form following last month's election, could have a wide choice of projects for settlement expansion.
Peace Now, which along with the international community views Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank as an obstacle to a viable Palestinian state, said it collated details of housing plans from the government's national mapping website.
The group said the data listed plans for 73,302 new housing units, of which 15,156 units have been approved.
It issued the report before the planned arrival later in the day of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is to hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
"If all the plans are realised, the number of settlers in the territories will be doubled" to 600,000, Peace Now said, cautioning such expansion could destroy chances for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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