another kind of violence that rarely is reported is that of the destruction of olive trees and orchards, things that take decades or longer to grow. or homes that go back many generations simply being bulldozed to make way for a wall or a road or because it blocks line of sight for a guard tower. the blatant, in your face theft that humiliates.
power, with no regard to future consequences, have put the Israelis where they are. It is hard to say if they are clever enough to pull it all off.
I have read that there are many US Jews who have recently moved to Israel. for sure they would bring that US ideal of expansion that saw a few settlements grow into the 4th largest country in the world.
life aint fair but it does seem to be even less so for the people of the middle east right now.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 30 2007 0:51 utc | 4

Interesting dos, I read just the opposite, Jews Leaving Israel, Returning to Russia..

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 30 2007 4:02 utc | 6

Looking from the side, from Belsen to Gaza

Amira Hass, who has lived in Gaza, describes it as a prison that shames her people. She recalls how her mother, Hannah, was being marched from a cattle-train to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen on a summer’s day in 1944.” [She] saw these German women looking at the prisoners, just looking,” she wrote. “This image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable ‘looking from the side’.”
“Looking from the side” is what those of us do who are cowed into silence by the threat of being called anti-Semitic. Looking from the side is what too many western Jews do, while those Jews who honour the humane traditions of Judaism and say, “Not in our name!” are abused as “self-despising”. Looking from the side is what almost the entire US Congress does, in thrall to or intimidated by a vicious Zionist “lobby’. Looking from the side is what “even-handed” journalists do as they excuse the lawlessness that is the source of Israeli atrocities and supress the historic shifts in the Palestinian resistance, such as the implicit recognition of Israel by Hamas. The people of Gaza cry out for better.

Posted by: b | Jan 30 2007 11:46 utc | 8

Why the anger? Here is another article by the indefatigable Amira Hass that explains just one of myriad reasons why. The bracketed notes are my clarifications. Again, sorry to excerpt at such length but this type of information NEVER makes it into the American consciousness, and it is fundamental to understanding the incredible, unimaginable burdens of simply trying to exist as a Palestinian under Israeli occupation. As you read it, factor in the power equation: All permits are controlled by Israel alone. To get the permit in and of itself might require a Herculean effort to travel to the appropriate office, wait in lines for hours or days, etc. But then of course, Israel can simply decide for any reason that a person is a “security risk” and therefore not entitled to a permit, whether one or all. Likewise, Israel can dangle the prospect of a permit in front of someone desperate and require, in return, certain types of information…
Life Under Prohibition in Palestine

All the promises to relax restrictions in the West Bank have obscured the true picture. A few roadblocks have been removed, but the following prohibitions have remained in place. (This information was gathered by Haaretz, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Machsom Watch)
Standing prohibitions
* Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are forbidden to stay in the West Bank.
* Palestinians [from the West Bank and Gaza] are forbidden to enter East Jerusalem.
* West Bank Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing.
* Palestinians [from anywhere? not sure if any live here] are forbidden to enter the Jordan Valley.
* Palestinians are forbidden to enter [Arab? Jewish? both? not sure] villages, lands, towns and neighborhoods along the “seam line” between the separation fence and the Green Line (some 10 percent of the West Bank).
* Palestinians who are not residents of the villages Beit Furik and Beit Dajan in the Nablus area, and Ramadin, south of Hebron, are forbidden entry to them.
* Palestinians are forbidden to enter the [Jewish] settlements’ area (even if their lands are inside the settlements’ built area).
* Palestinians are forbidden to enter [the central West Bank city of] Nablus in a vehicle.
* Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are forbidden to enter “area A” (Palestinian towns in the West Bank) [“area A” was defined as the portion of the West Bank turned over to Palestinian control under the Oslo Accords].
* Gaza Strip residents are forbidden to enter the West Bank via the Allenby crossing [from Jordan].
* Palestinians are forbidden to travel abroad via Ben-Gurion Airport [in Tel Aviv — the Israeli international airport — this is new to me and would be a major, major restriction if true, which I assume it is. I assume she means Palestinians from the occupied territories. This means their only option for leaving the country would be to travel overland to Amman, Jordan and fly from there. If anyone can confirm this and knows how long it has been in effect, I would be interested to know.].
* Children under age 16 are forbidden to leave Nablus without an original birth certificate and parental escort.
* Palestinians [from the occupied areas] with permits to enter Israel are forbidden to enter through the crossings used by Israelis and tourists.
* Gaza residents are forbidden to establish residency in the West Bank.
* West Bank residents are forbidden to establish residency in the Jordan valley [in the West Bank] seam-line communities or the villages of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan.
* Palestinians are forbidden to transfer merchandise and cargo through internal West Bank checkpoints.
Periodic prohibitions
* Residents of certain parts of the West Bank are forbidden to travel to the rest of the West Bank.
* People of a certain age group – mainly men from the age of 16 to 30, 35 or 40 – are forbidden to leave the areas where they reside (usually Nablus and other cities in the northern West Bank).
* Private cars may not pass the Swahara-Abu Dis checkpoint (which separates the northern and southern West Bank). This was cancelled for the first time two weeks ago under the easing of restrictions.
Travel permits required
* A magnetic card (intended for entrance to Israel, but eases the passage through checkpoints within the West Bank).
* A work permit for Israel (the employer must come to the civil administration offices and apply for one).
* A permit for medical treatment in Israel and Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem (The applicant must produce an invitation from the hospital, his complete medical background and proof that the treatment he is seeking cannot be provided in the occupied territories).
* A travel permit to pass through Jordan valley checkpoints.
* A merchant’s permit to transfer goods.
* A permit to farm along the seam line requires a form from the land registry office, a title deed, and proof of first-degree relations to the registered property owner.
* Entry permit for the seam line (for relatives, medical teams, construction workers, etc. Those with permits must enter and leave via the same crossing even if it is far away or closing early).
* Permits to pass from Gaza, through Israel to the West Bank.
* A birth certificate for children under 16.
* A long-standing resident identity card for those who live in seam-line enclaves.
Checkpoints and barriers
* There were 75 manned checkpoints in the West Bank as of January 9, 2007.
* There are on average 150 mobile checkpoints a week (as of September 2006).
* There are 446 obstacles placed between roads and villages, including concrete cubes, earth ramparts, 88 iron gates and 74 kilometers of fences along main roads.
* There are 83 iron gates along the separation fence, dividing lands from their owners. Only 25 of the gates open occasionally.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 30 2007 14:54 utc | 10

dos #7, from your link, thanks

The 50 percent increase in the migration of American Jews since 2003 compares with a world-wide rate of emigration that is at its lowest level since 1988.
The number of Americans moving to Israel is relatively small, about 3,200 in 2006, but
it is now nearly 15 percent of the annual total.

the economist

America has provided a mere 120,000 Israelis since 1948, and still has as many Jews as Israel. A survey two years ago by Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist at New York’s Hebrew Union College, found that just 17% of American Jews called themselves Zionists.
…
But Jews too young to have watched Israel rout three Arab armies in six days in 1967 are less likely to see it as heroic, morally superior, in need of help, or even relevant. “Israel in the Age of Eminem”, a report written in 2003 for the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, a Jewish charity, concluded that “There is a distance and detachment between young American Jews and their Israeli cousins that does not exist among young American Arabs and has not existed in the American Jewish community until now.” In Mr Cohen’s survey, only 57% of American Jews said that “caring about Israel is a very important part of my being Jewish”, down from 73% in a similar survey in 1989.
…
As many as 100,000 Russian-Israelis have gone back to Russia, says Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, the director of the Lubavitch-run Federation of Jewish Communities

Posted by: annie | Jan 30 2007 15:42 utc | 12

Your post at 13 requires a warning, b.
To think that this man has tenure and chair at Harvard Law …words fail me.

Posted by: ww | Jan 30 2007 20:32 utc | 14

Frontline had a show on tonight The Cell Next Door, about the Canadian terrorists and the plot to attack in Toronto. Apparently that was, in fact, a real attack that had been planned. Mubin Shaikh, a fundamentalist muslim, infiltrated the cell because, as he explained, murder is against the Koran and terrorism is bad for all muslims because of the reactions it provokes (and the problems it doesn’t solve.)
Here’s the background from the time.
The program was interesting also because of the parents whose sons had become terrorists. they all couldn’t believe it was their son they were seeing…at least one of them on tv as he was arrested. they all said their sons had been brainwashed (and blamed the use of the internet for this brainwashing…)
anyway, here we often have a tendency to discount any claimed terror cells, etc. as false flags, etc….so I suppose this just so happens to be my night to include perspective of another kind.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 31 2007 3:24 utc | 16

I suppose that might be so, b real. but doesn’t it seem a bit fantastical to think that no terrorists actually exist?
I cannot recall a show from Frontline that has not been well-researched. Please do watch the program. I’d like to know what other evidence exists to dispute the issues presented on the show.
The article from Global Research thinks that highly placed people in the U.S. govt., not Bin Laden, etc. orchestrated the terrorist attacks on 9-11 and this writer then collapses the idea of a “war on terror” being a bogus concept with events themselves. However, this same writer doesn’t deny that bin Laden has/had lackeys who were used in the event…so, were they entrapped? Are we supposed to assume they were coerced to cooperate in such an attack?
It’s not necessary to deny terrorism in order to think that a “war on terror” is a ridiculous notion. Was the Cole bombing orchestrated by U.S govt people too? Or the African embassy bombing? At what point did terrorism cease to be an action conducted by others and begin to be solely the province of the US govt?
What about the guys in England who planned to detonate bombs in the subway? Was that a lie?
The Global Research writer does not, in fact, dispute things that I saw in the program, and again, the parents of these children did not seem to think their children had been set up in a sting. The article on Global Research discusses the theatrical actions taken by the govt when the men were brought to trial and again makes a giant leap from that action to an assumption that the men were not engaged in any activity prior to their arrest, or even prior to their encounter with Shaikh, that was intended as a terrorist act. However, the program notes that they were initially identified by the contacts these men initiated with people associated with terrorism who lived outside North America.
Maybe they were totally set up. However, the Global Research article doesn’t seem to provide any actual evidence to support its denials. Because Shaikh was paid…is that a basis for an assumption that what he’s said are lies? Aren’t informants regularly paid in some form or another? If they were seeking material to create a bomb, and if their group had been infiltrated, is it entrapment if they are seeking the products on their own for their own stated purposes prior to their arrest?
Maybe I don’t have all the information about this situation.
But I do have to wonder if I am the only person on this board who thinks that actual “terrorists” exist who are not controlled by or “created” via entrapment by the US — their existence fits the understanding (from various sources, not the Bushies, etc.) that current situations are more like McTerror franchises and are not part of one monolithic “al qaeda.”
anyway, yes, please watch the program. I’d be interested to hear your feedback after you see it. Since it aired tonight, it will surely be repeated this week at some other time.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 31 2007 7:31 utc | 18

Israel Immigration
Not sure if these facts have been posted in answer to the controversy above on immigration to Israel. Immigration is down over all because of decrease from Russia but..

Aliya from North America rose to 3,200 in 2006 from 2,900 in 2005 and just 1,700 four years ago. Immigration from Britain rose to 720 this year from 481 last year. About 2,900 came from France, slightly down on 2005.

Posted by: ww | Jan 31 2007 9:59 utc | 20

b real
that is also the argument of a european think tank – that released its report this month. that the ‘terrorists’ were dissafected & relatively unpoliticised people, that they had no connection to a q or in fact any formal relation with any muslim organisation. their independence a& their amateurism is marked
& i have thought that since 2001 – in the rest of the world – they have chosen soft targets – phillipines or indonesia (bali), the actions that took place in spain & in london were not expert in either their organisation or their conception. murdochs monster have created a beast that on closer observation reveals no such substantive threat
if you remember the irish national liberation army which must have been all of 10 people – yes they were capable of effecting actions – but they were action stripped of any real signification other than the carnage they mirrored from their colonisers
in iraq it is clear to anyone with eyes & ears that the resistance in a formal & conceptual level is national & not religious whatever andersoon cooper or our own slothrop want to suggest
yes fauxreal – formations must exist – i’d suggest mostly in familial or tribal groupings elsewhere but i believe that their organisational level is very weak indeed
& i would accept that dicum that terrorism is really only the free market of force – that the state does not possess a monopoly on violence

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 31 2007 21:59 utc | 22

Contrary to what we hear everyday, I guess NOT EVERYBODY is better off with Saddam gone: Another appeal from the U.N. Refugee Agency:
UN refugee agency issues new appeal for help for Palestinians fleeing persecution in Iraq.

Posted by: Rick | Feb 2 2007 1:48 utc | 24