‘Half of US Muslims face prejudice’
Press TV – August 3, 2011
US Muslims protesting against a planned congressional hearing on the alleged role of Muslims in homegrown terrorism in New York, March 2011
Nearly half of American Muslims say they have experienced racial or religious discrimination over the past year, a new poll has revealed.
According to the survey conducted by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, a Gallup research hub in the United Arab Emirates, 48 percent of Muslims in America said they had “personally experienced racial or religious discrimination” in the past year, AFP reported on Tuesday.
The poll, which was carried out ahead of the tenth anniversary of the September 11 incidents, shows that American Muslims lead all other faith groups in rejecting terrorism and attacks on civilians.
Muslim Americans also tend to have more negative views of the American military and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), attributing such opinions to the so-called “war on terror” which focuses heavily on Muslims, the report added.
Based on the survey, following the election of US President Barack Obama, the 2.6 million Muslims in America, tend to be more optimistic about both the economy and politics compared with the other faith groups.
UNRWA: Clear link between settlements and demolitions
Ma’an – 02/08/2011
JERUSALEM — The link between Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank and the displacement of Palestinians from their homes is now “abundantly clear,” UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said Tuesday.
“Many displacements are taking place where settlements are expanding and with it we are seeing an upturn in vicious attacks by Jewish settlers. Palestinians are being thrown off their ancestral lands to make way for settlers,” Gunness told Ma’an.
Figures released Tuesday by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees showed a sharp rise in demolitions of Palestinian homes and livelihood structures by Israeli authorities in the West Bank.
The UN Relief and Works Agency said 356 structures had been demolished in the first six months of this year, compared with 431 for the whole of 2010.
And the agency said 700 people had been displaced by the demolitions in the first six months of 2011, compared with 594 in the whole of 2010. In June and July, some 605 Palestinians were displaced or affected by demolitions, many of whom were children.
Israel’s restrictions on movement, confiscation of land and resources, revocation of residency rights, harassment from the Israeli military, settler attacks and lack of protection against settler attacks were also causes of displacement in the West Bank, the UN agency said.
Israel’s demolitions and policies in Area C — the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli control — were driving already poor families deeper into poverty, Gunness said.
“There is growing evidence that it is destroying the very fabric of these communities and ultimately contributing to a demographic shift which is changing the ethnic make-up of the West Bank,” he added.
Israel only allows Palestinians to build on one percent of Area C under a system UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pilay has condemned as discriminatory. Most demolitions occur in Area C.
Israel says its demolitions of homes are based only on whether the structures in question have the appropriate permits.
But Gunness said demolitions had escalated in areas targeted for settlement expansion, adding that it was “a cause of great concern.”
Meanwhile, the UN official says it is “virtually impossible” for Palestinians to obtain permission to build on their land “while Israeli settlements receive preferential treatment in the allocation of water and land, and approval of development plans.”
UNRWA urged the Israeli government to end the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in the occupied territories “including immediately ceasing demolitions of Palestinian-owned structures.”
“We call for transparency, accountability and an end to policies and practices that violate Israel’s obligations under international law.”
Israel’s construction of Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land is illegal under international law.
The last round of peace talks collapsed over Israel’s refusal to extend a partial freeze on settlement construction.The Palestinians say they will not negotiate while Israel builds on land which would be a Palestinian state under an agreement.
The War on You
By Michael Collins | The Money Party | July 31, 2011
Let the word go forth from Washington! The corporate rulers occupying our nation’s capital have declared war on just about every citizen.
Have no doubt: those in the upper ranges of the top 1% of wealth in this country (aka The Money Party) want to kick you to the curb.
They want to reduce your social security and make you go broke paying for medical care.
They want to lower your wages and trash your retirement.
They ignore the clear facts that we’ve had negative job growth since 2000 and the situation is just getting worse.
They want to ship jobs, factories, and entire businesses overseas and give companies that do that a big fat tax credit for doing so.
They’ve been given so much for nothing for so long. Now, they’re ready to take it all. It’s their time!
The most recent assault is the ridiculous debate about raising the debt ceiling. There should be no debate. Failing to raise the ceiling right now means deliberate default on debts, refusing to pay bills the government can pay. It’s called fraud.
The pressing need to fix the budget is a separate issue. Reduced spending and increased revenues should come through broad public involvement and open debate. It mandates that the rulers behave like adults.
But this crisis isn’t about putting together a real budget. It’s about creating a budget that punishes you, your family, and friends. It’s about taking your attention away from your vital interests to maximize income and control by The Money Party.
Were the leaders on either side of the debate serious, the Bush era tax cuts would be rescinded. These cuts on the top 1% were temporary. Guess what? Congress lied. When the temporary tax breaks ran out a few months ago, they were revived and renewed just when we had the greatest need for revenues.
The Money Party won’t give up its wars either. Iraq and Afghanistan have added $4 trillion to the national debt of $14 trillion. Why not stop the wars? How hard is that to figure that out?
Getting rid of Bush tax cuts for the super-rich, ending the wars, and moving out of the recession/depression would be huge steps toward balancing the budget. But that won’t happen with this Congress and this president. Why? That would cost the financial elite money for taxes and lost income for all those weapons they sell to support the wars.
The Attack on You Began in Earnest Just Years Ago
Congress repealed Depression era banking regulation that kept your banks from risky investments in 1999.
Congress enacted legislation in 2000 that allowed extremely risky investments in real estate and other derivatives, illegal for nearly a century.
In 2001, the big banks and Wall Street celebrated its newly purchased freedoms with a decade-long binge of fraud and risky investments. Like a greedy con artist, they took everything they could from people here and around the world until there was no more to take. We have now hit the wall thanks to them.
The outrageous expenses of wars based on lies caught up with us and shoved the deficit to new heights. The tax cuts for the top 1% took away revenues needed to balance the budget.
The money they steal from the Social Security surplus is no longer enough. They want to keep the tax in place for us and take an even bigger rake-off.
This crisis is manufactured by the ongoing greed of The Money Party. It is funded by the US Treasury. You pay for it, all of it.
Pamela Geller slanders the Utoya victims (elitist anti-Semites, Hitler youth, oh and race-mixers)
By Paul Mutter | Mondoweiss | August 2, 2011
Pamela Geller, founder of Atlas Shrugs, delayed a full response to the shootings in Norway (by her own admission). Her ideological associates, in the meantime, had been issuing statements condemning the violence – as well as the victims’ politics. And now, Atlas Shrugs has finally joined this argument: this past Sunday, Geller published an analysis of the victims titled “Summer Camp? Antisemitic Indoctrination Training Center“:
But the jihad-loving media never told us what antisemitic war games they were playing on that island. Utoya Island is a Communist/Socialist campground, and they clearly had a pro-Islamic agenda.
Only the malevolent media could use the euphemism summer camp and get away with it.
The slaughter was horrific. What these kids were being taught and instructed to do was a different kind of grotesque. There is no justification for Breivik’s actions whatsoever. There is also no justification for Norway’s antisemitism and demonization of Israel.
Even Geller knows these statements will be construed by the “Genocidal Leftists” as an endorsement of violence, but insists that it’s necessary to put the shootings in a larger context – the context of the global struggle against Islam:
. . . . Utoya camp was not Islamist but it WAS something not much more wholesome (by our standards, at any rate).
It was a summer indoctrination camp run by Norway’s ruling Labor Party for up-and-coming children of the ruling elite.
Glen Beck [sic] was not far off when he compared it to the Hitlerjugend or Young Pioneers.”
Think Progress caught on to the fact that an earlier version of this post referred to “race mixing” among the Norwegian youth at the camp. Specifically, a now-removed picture caption read “Note the faces which are more MIddle Eastern [sic] or mixed than pure Norwegian.” Even some favorable comments on the post called Ms. Geller out on this caption. Perhaps the intent of this statement was to demonstrate that there were Muslims present at the summer camp and that their presence was (of course) related to the youth organization’s “anti-Semitic” and “pro-Palestinian” agenda?
The statement was probably removed, though, because it could be taken to suggest that a non-Caucasian life (especially one mixed in with Muslim blood) is somehow “worth less” than a Caucasian (or part-Caucasian) one. While Geller did not come out and say that, the notion is far from the fringes of respectability in “journalistic” debate.
Geller also approvingly quotes an argument for moral relativism vis a vis Palestinians and Israelis in relation to the shootings:
“For them it is unacceptable for Breivik to murder Norwegian children, because his ideology is wrong. But it is acceptable for Palestinians to murder Israeli children, because their ideology is right.”
Given the intensely pro-Zionist feelings among the anti-Islamic right, it is sadly inevitable that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be used to “contextualize” a terorrist attack on “socialist” “pro-Islamic” “aristocrats” (all terms she uses to describe the camp attendees). The spleen is practically audible.
Is the anti-Islamic right suggesting that the Islamo-communist children of Norway’s ruling party were asking for trouble by engaging in behavior such as displaying signs that say “Opphev Blokkaden Av Gaza” (Oppose the Blockade of Gaza) and signing onto the BDS Movement? Geller and her cohorts suggested, soon after the identity of the shooter became known, that “If anyone incited him to violence, it was Islamic supremacists. If anything incited him to violence, it was the Euro-Med policy.”
Such statements now even more eerily echo Breivik’s own manifesto in that he lumped together his specific targets with the larger anti-Semitic Islamo-communist alliance that, according to the anti-Islamic right, holds Norway (and the EU in general) in its grip. Such sentiments have long been present in the discourse, but to hear such assertions articulated more forcefully now after what has happened is even more disturbing. “We are witnessing the complete breakdown of rational society,” Geller opined in response to hate mail she has received since the attacks.
Geller has no idea how right she is!
To Post Ombud, Critics of ‘Muslims Did It’ Blogger Are the Real Monsters
By Peter Hart – FAIR – 08/01/2011
Washington Post ombud Patrick Pexton weighed in yesterday (7/31/11) on the criticisms of right-wing Post blogger Jennifer Rubin. She was among a handful of media personalities who declared the Norway terror attacks to be the work of Muslim jihadists. As she put it (7/22/11): “In all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra…. As the attack in Oslo reminds us, there are plenty of Al-Qaeda allies still operating.”
This would seem to be an easy call for an ombud — news outlets should try to shy away from baseless, bigoted speculation. But that’s not Pexton’s point; right from the start, he expressed sympathy with Rubin:
When I received my Post e-mail alert about the bombing in Norway, my first thought was that it was Al-Qaeda.
Pexton wonders why he got so much mail about Rubin, attributing that fact to “her style, her faith, how the liberal and conservative blogospheres work on the news cycle, and, finally, a certain American insensitivity toward mass casualties in other lands.”
Well, maybe. Or perhaps some people are bothered by outlets that publish vicious, baseless innuendo.
In discussing why Rubin didn’t modify her post after the news that the suspect Anders Breivik was not a Muslim terrorist at all, Pexton explains:
Rubin has a good defense. She is Jewish. She generally observes the Sabbath from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday; she doesn’t blog, doesn’t tweet, doesn’t respond to reader e-mails.
OK. But then it’s hard to fathom what she wrote when she did check in — one of the only criticisms Pexton seems to think is legitimate:
When she went online at 8 p.m. Saturday, her mea culpa post on Norway was the first thing she posted, although its tone also hurt her, particularly this sentence, which struck many readers as borderline racist: “There are many more jihadists than blond Norwegians out to kill Americans, and we should keep our eye on the systemic and far more potent threats that stem from an ideological war with the West.”
Pexton goes on and offers some mush about the ideological divide:
Liberals and conservatives don’t talk to each other much anymore…. If your politics are liberal and you don’t generally read Rubin, but you read her Norway posts, you probably would be pretty offended. But if you are a conservative, or someone who reads Rubin regularly, you’ll know that this is what she does and who she is.
Is that supposed to be a defense of her writing — that she regularly publishes ill-informed speculation? Pexton had a chat with Rubin and decided that
she is not an ogre or a racist. And she does not deserve some of the calumny she got. Some of the e-mail she received was way over the line–ugly, obscene, vile and, worst, containing threats of physical harm.
You can sense that Pexton’s conclusion is drifting in that direction — the real problem is her critics. But I was surprised at how far he went:
This brings us back to the shootings in Norway, an act committed by a disturbed man who drew some of his inspiration from extremist websites. A blogosphere given to vitriol and hasty judgments ought to consider the possible consequences of its own online attacks.
Pexton’s point seems to be that liberal-left critics of Rubin are like the Islamophobic blogs which were cited in the manifesto Breivik wrote to explain his murderous terrorism; it doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that Rubin’s original post resembled Breivik’s actual inspirations, not only in tone but in content.
So, according to the Post ombud, the writers who pointed out the inaccurate, bigoted punditry of someone with a perch on a major newspaper’s website are like hatemongers, and may just inspire a killing spree. Wow.
The New Yorker On The Raid In Abbottabad
Moon of Alabama | August 2, 2011
Inside a New Yorker piece which tells the official “inside” story of the Bin Laden raid in Abbottabad the U.S. government wants you to know.
There is at least one quite unbelievable detail in it. The SEALs that went in had a translator with them who’s role was to keep locals off during the raid.
A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard.
[…]
Not everyone on the team was accustomed to helicopter assaults. Ahmed had been pulled from a desk job for the mission and had never descended a fast rope. He quickly learned the technique.
[…]
As long as everything was cordial, Ahmed would hold curious neighbors at bay.
[…]
Outside the compound’s walls, Ahmed, the translator, patrolled the dirt road in front of bin Laden’s house, as if he were a plainclothes Pakistani police officer. He looked the part, wearing a shalwar kameez atop a flak jacket.
[…]
Eventually, a few curious Pakistanis approached to inquire about the commotion on the other side of the wall. “Go back to your houses,” Ahmed said, in Pashto, as Cairo stood watch. “There is a security operation under way.” The locals went home, none of them suspecting that they had talked to an American. When journalists descended on Bilal Town in the coming days, one resident told a reporter, “I saw soldiers emerging from the helicopters and advancing toward the house. Some of them instructed us in chaste Pashto to turn off the lights and stay inside.”
After 10 years of continuous fighting in Afghanistan the Special Forces do not have an operational Pashto speaker but have to draft a desk jokey? And why was the translator a “chaste Pashto” speaker? The common languages in Pakistan, the lingua franca, are Urdu and English and then there is this fact:
According to the 1998 Census of the 881,000 who resided in the Abbottabad District, Hindko was spoken by 94.26% of the population, followed by Potohari at 2.30%, Pashto at 2.22% and Urdu at 1.05%. Although the first language of most people in the district is Hindko, Urdu is understood and spoken fluently by majority of the residents and commonly used in markets, offices and formal functions. English is widely used in business and education.
If that account in the New Yorker is true it was a major planning mistake and screw up to send a Pashto speaker with the special forces instead of an Urdu speaker. For an important operation planned over months this sounds unbelievable.
There is also this curious wording in New Yorker piece:
Back in Abbottabad, residents of Bilal Town and dozens of journalists converged on bin Laden’s compound, and the morning light clarified some of the confusion from the previous night. Black soot from the detonated Black Hawk charred the wall of the animal pen. Part of the tail hung over the wall. It was clear that a military raid had taken place there. “I’m glad no one was hurt in the crash, but, on the other hand, I’m sort of glad we left the helicopter there,” the special-operations officer said. “It quiets the conspiracy mongers out there and instantly lends credibility. You believe everything else instantly, because there’s a helicopter sitting there.”
Hmm.
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, The Head Of Obama’s Jobs Council, Is Moving Jobs And Economic Infrastructure To China At A Blistering Pace
The Economic Collapse | July 29, 2011
Jeffrey Immelt, the head of Barack Obama’s highly touted “Jobs Council”, is moving even more GE infrastructure to China. GE makes more medical-imaging machines than anyone else in the world, and now GE has announced that it “is moving the headquarters of its 115-year-old X-ray business to Beijing“. Apparently, this is all part of a “plan to invest about $2 billion across China” over the next few years. But moving core pieces of its business overseas is nothing new for GE. Under Immelt, GE has shipped tens of thousands of good jobs out of the United States. Perhaps GE should change its slogan to “Imagination At Work (In China)”. If the very people that have been entrusted with solving the unemployment crisis are shipping jobs out of the country, what hope is there that things are going to turn around any time soon?
Earlier this month, Immelt made the following statement to a jobs summit at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce….
“There’s no excuse today for lack of leadership. The truth is we all need to be part of the solution.”
Apparently Immelt’s idea of being part of the solution is to ship as many jobs overseas as he possibly can.
A recent article on the Huffington Post documented how GE has been sending tens of thousands of good jobs out of the country….
As the administration struggles to prod businesses to create jobs at home, GE has been busy sending them abroad. Since Immelt took over in 2001, GE has shed 34,000 jobs in the U.S., according to its most recent annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But it’s added 25,000 jobs overseas.
At the end of 2009, GE employed 36,000 more people abroad than it did in the U.S. In 2000, it was nearly the opposite.
GE is supposed to be creating the “jobs of tomorrow”, but it seems that most of the “jobs of tomorrow” will not be located inside the United States.
The last GE factory in the U.S. that made light bulbs closed last September. The transition to the new CFL light bulbs was supposed to create a whole bunch of those “green jobs” that Barack Obama keeps talking about, but as an article in the Washington Post noted, that simply is not happening….
Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.
But GE is far from alone in shipping jobs and economic infrastructure out of the United States. For example, big automakers such as Ford are being very aggressive in China. Ford is currently “building three factories in Chongqing as part of $1.6 billion investment that also includes another plant in Nanchang”.
Today, China accounts for approximately one out of every four vehicles sold worldwide. The big automakers consider the future to be in China.
Just a few decades ago, China was an economic joke and the U.S. economy was absolutely unparalleled.
But disastrous trade policies have opened up the door for a mammoth transfer of jobs, factories and wealth from the United States to China.
China has become an absolute powerhouse and America is rapidly declining.
Beautiful new infrastructure is going up all over China even as U.S. infrastructure rots and decays right in front of our eyes.
You can see some amazing pictures of the stunning economic development that has been going on in China here, here, here and here.
Meanwhile, America is being de-industrialized at lightning speed and very few of our politicians seem to care.
Back in 1979, there were 19.5 million manufacturing jobs in the United States.
Today, there are 11.6 million.
That represents a decline of 40 percent during a time period when our overall population experienced tremendous growth.
We used to have the greatest manufacturing cities on the entire globe. The rest of the world was in awe of us.
Today, most of those formerly great manufacturing cities are decaying, rotting hellholes.
The following is what one reporter from the UK saw during his visit to Detroit….
As you pass the city limits a blanket of gloom, neglect and cheapness descends. The buildings are shabbier, the paint is faded. The businesses, where they exist, are thrift shops and pawn shops or wretched groceries where the goods are old and tired. Finding somewhere to have breakfast, normally easy in any American city, involves a long hunt. ‘God bless Detroit’, says one billboard, just beside another offering the alternative solution: liquor.
You can see some really shocking images of the decline of Detroit right here.
Our politicians insisted that globalism would not result in a “giant sucking sound” as millions of jobs left America.
But that is exactly what has happened.
Sadly, most American families still don’t understand what has happened. Most of them are still waiting for things to get back to “normal”.
Millions of unemployed Americans are dealing with incredible amounts of stress right now as they wait for jobs to start opening up again. But the jobs that have been shipped overseas are not coming back. In a globalized economy, it doesn’t make sense to hire American workers when you can legally pay workers slave labor wages on the other side of the globe.
Millions of good middle class jobs have been replaced by low paying service jobs. Today there are huge numbers of Americans that are cutting hair or flipping burgers because that is all they can get right now.
Many others are only able to survive because of the safety net. One reader named David recently left a comment in which he shared his story. David did everything that the system asked him to do, but the promised rewards never materialized. Now David is broke, unemployed and he feels deeply frustrated….
A year ago I had a job, we were struggling, but bills were getting paid, and somehow we were getting by. Then I made the mistake of getting sick, one day before my company insurance kicked in. An auto-immune illness almost killed me, if it weren’t for the amazing efforts of my physicians and an emergency spleenectomy, I would not be here.
My wife would have been a single mother,raising two young sons, one of which is autistic. Instead, I pulled through. The disease damaged my liver, leaving me with a chronic condition, and even after a year, it is hard to get up and go some days. My “employer” dumped me as soon as I left the hospital, and I haven’t worked since. It isn’t for lack of looking. There just isn’t anything.
Oh, I get my government cheese money. Here I am college educated, unable to find something that can pay the bills better than the money that we get from the government. It sickens me to be this dependent on the system like this. But the system de-incentivizes work, and makes living on the dole make a perverse economic sense.
I used to have dreams, but I have given up on them. My wife and I have no savings, we have no life raft and if it weren’t for the generosity of her parents and mine, things would have ground to a halt a long time ago.
I believed every thing adults told me. Work hard, I did. Get an education, I did. Find a nice girl and settle down, I did. Two cars, a dog, a cat and couple of kids, a nice townhouse…the american dream. Yep.
I love my country. My heart is broken, broken because I have been betrayed. I did what you asked, I played by the rules. I did what you said to do; I submitted, I conformed, I stopped dreaming. Now what?
I am willing to pay for my faults and transgressions; my failures are my own, I get that. My children should not have to suffer for my failures, they did not do anything wrong. My youngest boy is autistic, we hope he will be able to integrate into society, but the fact is we may have to take care of him for the rest of his life. How do I do this with nothing, and no opportunity in the foreseeable future?
Depression, stress…yep, I’ve got all that. I used to be hopeful and optimistic about the future. Now all I am is afraid.
As the United States continues to bleed good jobs, stories like the one you just read are going to become much more common.
So what are our politicians doing about all of this?
They tell us that we need even more “free trade”!
Barack Obama says that we need more free trade.
The Republicans say that we need more free trade.
In Washington D.C. our politicians do not agree on much, but one thing they do agree on is that we need to keep shipping jobs out of the country.
Until the American people wake up and start demanding an end to the globalization of the U.S. economy, the job losses are just going to continue to get worse.
The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000. If this trend continues, millions more Americans will soon be surviving on food stamps or living in tent cities.
The American people are deeply concerned about the economy, but they still have not connected the dots on these issues. The mainstream media and most of our politicians keep telling them that the globalization of the economy is a wonderful thing.
It is so sad that people just do not understand what is going on right in front of their eyes.
Whether you are a conservative or a liberal or a libertarian, you should be against the deindustrialization of America.
Allowing our industrial base to be raped is not a good thing.
Allowing big corporations and foreign governments to pay slave labor wages to workers on the other side of the globe making things that will be sold inside the United States is not a good thing.
Allowing the destruction of our industrial capacity to threaten our national security is not a good thing.
Allowing millions of precious jobs to leave the country is not a good thing.
The biggest corporations are making some extra profits by exploiting cheap labor on the other side of the globe. Corporate executives love to shower themselves with larger and larger bonuses.
But our current trade policies are not working for American workers.
We need “fair trade”, not “free trade”.
The United States is being taken advantage of, and the Democrats and the Republicans are both laying down like doormats and letting it happen.
If you want to know where all the good jobs went, it is not a big mystery.
They have been shipped out of the country and they are not coming back.
Unless fundamental changes are made, things are going to get worse and worse and worse for American workers.
So what is going to happen next?
It is up to you America.
AL-KHALIL (HEBRON): Mekerot Water Company disrupts flow of water to Palestinian crops again
CPTnet | 1 August 2011
The Mekerot Water Company continues to disrupt the flow of water to Palestinian farms in the Beqa’a Valley. CPTers received a call on 20 July to document further damage to crops when the water company ripped out plastic irrigation pipes, saying that the Palestinians were stealing water. Seleh Jaber, a sixty-seven-year-old farmer, told CPTers that Mekerot also cut strings that support beans and cut pipes in violation of the Geneva conventions. (1)
Mekerot has destroyed cisterns and wells on the Jaber property, filling them with rocks, and has issued orders for the demolition of all wells in the valley. Jaber said that the interruption of water to crops damages the Palestinian economy. He also said that since farmers in the Beqa’a have many children, the denial of water damages families. Hassan Jaber, a family member whose new house is under construction after the Israeli military demolished his previous home, told CPTers Mekerot personnel beat young men with sticks and clubs when they are in the fields and Mekerot arrives to destroy irrigation equipment. Selah Jaber estimates that over eighty men, women, and children were affected by Mekerot’s pipe cutting venture on 20 July 2011. Shaddad Attili, the head of the Palestinian Water Authority, writing in the Jerusalem Post, June 2011, has listed numerous examples of Israel’s stranglehold on the water supply, such as denying permits for water exploration and destroying cisterns. The Palestinians thus face severe water shortages, despite the fact that the three principle underground aquifers of Palestine are found largely in the West Bank:
- The Yarkon-Tanninim Aquifer supplies Israel with about 340 million cubic meters of water annually, which are used by the Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv area. Palestinians use about 20 million cubic meters a year from this aquifer.
- The Nablus-Gilboa Aquifer supplies Israel with about 115 million cubic meters a year, largely for agricultural irrigation in the kibbutzim (communes) and moshavim (cooperative settlements) in Galilee.
- The Eastern Aquifer supplies about 40 million cubic meters annually to the Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley, and about 60 million cubic meters to the Palestinians.
Israeli planners insist that the Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer is vital to Israeli water needs, and therefore would like to retain control of settlement blocks over that area, adjacent to the so called “center” of Israel, the Gush Dan area. Israel’s water supply always came from these aquifers, both during British mandate times and when Jordan ruled the area.
Seleh Jaber told CPTers, “The people of Beqa’a live in constant fear that their crops and way of life will be destroyed.” They are constantly seeking ways, in and out of the legal system, to plant and harvest beans, melons, tomatoes, and peppers as their families have done in Beqa’a for over 400 years.
Footnotes
(1) J. L. El Hindi, The West Bank Aquifer and Conventions Regarding Laws of Belligerent Occupation, Michigan Journal of International Law, Vol. 11, No. 4, Summer 1990.
Venezuela: Lowest Percentage of Social Inequality in Latin America
Correo del Orinoco International | July 31, 2011
Venezuela has the lowest percentage (0.38 percent) of social inequality in Latin America, according a report released by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The President of the National Institute of Statistics, Elias Eljuri, said on Monday that the ECLAC report shows that extreme poverty in Venezuela was reduced from 21 percent in 1999, when the Bolivarian Revolution began, to 6.9 percent, with a tendency to continue decreasing.
The report, which was recently presented by ECLAC Executive Secretary, Alicia Barcena, also confirms that Venezuela has been able to reduce the gap of income distribution per capita by almost 15 percent.
The report’s data confirm figures issued by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), showing a 4.5 percent increase of GDP during the first trimester of the year, thanks to the government’s boost to the public and private sectors.
Additionally, the ECLAC report highlights that the economy in Latin America and the Caribbean would increase by 4.7 percent this year.
During a radio interview, Eljuri also highlighted the increase of formal workers over the last 12 years, which stood at 46 percent and now reaches 57 percent.
Social policies of the Chavez government have been largely responsible for the decrease in poverty and increase in overall social well being in the South American nation. Using oil profits, the Venezuelan state has invested heavily in healthcare, education and infrastructure to improve quality of life for all.
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By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016
… What will almost never be talked about are the many very good reasons a person from the vast region stretching from Morrocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, have to be very angry at, and to feel highly vengeful toward, the US, its strategic puppeteer Israel, and their slavishly loyal European compadres like France, Germany and Great Britain. … Read full article
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Aletho News- We must act before Palestinian hostages are executed in the world’s worst prisons
- Why Washington will take Greenland
- Former Head of Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate: There’s a ‘very significant influence operation by the US’ in Iran
- Israel–Syria security pact stumbles as Tel Aviv rejects withdrawal: Report
- The Ukraine Snare Still Beckons
- Italy and the drone that isn’t there
- Knesset advances bill mandating death by hanging for Palestinian prisoners
- Eilat port faces worst crisis as Red Sea shipping collapses
- Iran protest-riots can only achieve US-Israeli intervention, ‘shadow CIA’ concludes
- The Coming War on Iran: What Has Really Been Happening?
- If Americans Knew
- During “ceasefire,” at least 100 Gaza children killed – clearly NOT a ceasefire Day 96
- Israel Has Demolished 2,500 Buildings in Gaza Since Signing Ceasefire Deal
- Iran, Gaza and the politics of counting the dead
- How Israel’s move in Somaliland fits in its broader strategy for regional dominance
- As genocide continues in Gaza, the West Bank is pushed into a new Nakba
- Israeli settlers beat elderly, deaf Palestinian man in West Bank attack, video shows
- U.S. May Bankroll New Israeli Armored Vehicles With Billions of Dollars, Internal Files Reveal
- How Israel and the US are exploiting Iranian protests
- The New Neoconservatives
- As more Gaza children freeze to death, Trump eyes Gaza as starting point for world domination – Not a ceasefire Day 95
- No Tricks Zone
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
- German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!
- Berlin Blackout Shows Germany’s $5 Trillion Green Scheme Is “Left-Green Ideological Pipe Dream”
- Modeling Error In Estimating How Clouds Affect Climate Is 8700% Larger Than Alleged CO2 Forcing
- Berlin’s Terror-Blackout Enters 4th Day As Tens Of Thousands Suffer In Cold Without Heat!
- Expect Soon Another PIK Paper Claiming Warming Leads To Cold Snaps Over Europe
- New Study: Human CO2 Emissions Responsible For 1.57% Of Global Temperature Change Since 1750
- Welcome To 2026: Europe Laying Groundwork For Climate Science Censorship!
- New Study Finds A Higher Rate Of Global Warming From 1899-1940 Than From 1983-2024
Aletho News 
![Note the faces which are more MIddle Eastern [sic] or mixed than pure Norwegian](http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/gellerscreenshot.png){kind=link}