An article this week in The Jerusalem Post suggested that "when the construction freeze in Judea and Samaria ends on September 26", Israeli PM Netanyahu intends to build mainly in the so-called settlement blocs "Israel will likely keep under an agreement with the Palestinians".
Further down, the piece notes:
Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, who is also in the septet [inner security cabinet], first came out in favor of resuming building only in the blocs in a June 15 speech in Efrat.
Sources close to Netanyahu said shortly afterward that he might make such a decision because it could satisfy both Likud and Labor. They noted that Netanyahu had made a point of planting trees on Tu Bishvat in three “consensus” areas: Ariel, Ma’aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion.
So, according to Netanyahu, the 'consensus' areas - in other words, illegal colonies that are assumed to remain under full Israeli control - include Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion. The following map (from the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem) points out these three blocs, as well as Qiryat Arba in Hebron, and Modi'in Illit.
Some key settlement blocs
Defining what constitutes a 'bloc' is difficult, as there are differing interpretations. Here is another map from ARIJ, highlighting a greater number of blocs.
14 settlement blocs
We already know that Netanyahu intends to keep the Jordan Valley in Israeli hands. Along with the 'consensus' colonies, the borders of the Palestinian enclaves continue to get clearer.
The quest for lebensraum continues.
The accusation of “Lebensraum” (a term forged by Hitler ) for Israel is so ridiculous and arbitrary that it casts a grim light on the user. Let’s try to keep an eye on the link to lib.utexas.edu
rel=”nofollow”>proportions, otherweise we fall into cheap anti-Semitic propaganda.
link to haaretz.com
That was a disappointing announcement.
“That was a disappointing announcement.”
Why?..Wasn’t that expected from Netanyahu?..Do you expect cats to act like dogs? But maybe you would’ve preferred a different course of action but that would have been unrealistic knowing what Netanyahu/Likud stand for..
Not, you know, that you’ll actually blame any Israeli for perpetuating violence, stealing land or sabotaging genuine peace efforts. It’s “just disappointing.”
The borders that Netanyahu intends for “Palestine” are the same as every other Israeli PM has had in mind for the last 20 years i.e. the Allon Plan with minor variations:
link to lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com
>> The borders that Netanyahu intends for “Palestine” are the same as every other Israeli PM has had in mind for the last 20 years i.e. the Allon Plan with minor variations:
Examining those maps only makes RW’s incredible hypocrisy even more galling. “No reason to reject it because it’s ‘not perfect’!” He wouldn’t be quite so generous were the Israelis in the situation the Palestinians are currently in.
At least he knows how to “Remember the Holocaust!”
Good point, Diane. And your link is to a very cogent posting of yours. Highly recommended for anyone seeking to understand the Israeli “negotiating” position over the decades.
Agreed tree ~ I wish I had time to read through all the LoC archives. Thanks Diane, I’m a big fan.
DIANE- I agree completely with you, tree and Sumud. Put aside the smoke, mirrors and hasbra, the facts on the ground tell a tale of Zionist plans and objectives consistently applied. This would be common knowledge if the corporate media had even a shred of integrity.
Very good stuff. Of course when talk turns to generosity we should remind people that the Palestinians have never been offered one square inch of territory where they would have true sovereignty with control of borders, which is the same as saying that every square inch of Palestine is claimed for Israeli control and sovereignty. This, after all, is what the Bible is said to require.
West Bank aquifers.
Under no circumstance should Israel receive a single square inch of land beyond the June 4 1967 line. Israel must not be rewarded for putting Palestinians in the Occupied Territories through hell for the last 43 years.
The world already turned a blind eye once to Israel’s land-grabbing, permitting it to swallow fully half of the Palestinian partition in 1947/8/9. No more.
link to theenemyshallnot.blogspot.com
Government is the most successful form of banditry
Edit: ‘the temporary borders of the Palestinian enclaves continue to get clearer.’
The Swiss-cheese West Bank is not a viable territory. If the two-staters prevail, this interim arrangement won’t last more than a few years.
Try to find the borders of the former Bophuthatswana out in the South African veld now. It lasted 17 years before its arbitrarily-imposed apartheid borders were swept away into history’s dustbin.
Gerrymandering Palestine is an exercise in futility.
yikes,
the crime spree killer was boarded on a plane to Israel.
link to nytimes.com
A suspect in the killings of five people and the stabbings of 15 others in three states was arrested at the airport here as he tried to board a plane to Israel, the authorities said Thursday morning.
The suspect was identified as Elias Abuelazam, 33, and investigators said they believed he was responsible for a spree of attacks in Michigan, Ohio and Virginia that began in May. Mr. Abuelazam was arrested on Wednesday night and was being held on unrelated charges, the police in Leesburg, Va., said in a statement.
Will be interesting how the press treats Elias Abuelazam, who I think is an Israeli. What if he was of arab background? I notice the MSM is downplaying that the black beerhouse shooter of 8 of his fellow white workers; his ethnic identity is only mentioned sometime and obliquely, by saying he thought he was the victim of white racism–so far none of the few facts divulged even faintly suggest racism was involved–except by the shooter: link to article.nationalreview.com
Sometimes, a person is just paranoid, like the beerhouse shooter:
link to post-gazette.com
Apparently he’s an Arab Israeli:
link to examiner.com
Elias is obviously an Israeli Palestinian. It would be interesting to see how his backgrounds are going to be dissected by the media. Would they give him a special/milder treatment when they know that’s he’s not a Muslim but a Christian (Elias is a common Christian name).
The way it’s evolving it looks like all palestinans are ending up in areas A and B. There are about 4 percent left in area C and they are having a very hard time, standard of life is worse than in Gaza. (here is an article about standard of life in Area C: link to english.aljazeera.net
) . The positive news about economical development in the west bank then gets a new twist: can economical development be used as a tool to help concentrate the population in a smaller area? It’s not clear to me what the ideas are about what to do with the gaps between areas A+B and the Allon plan. Also there is the little triangle for which a way has to be found to transfer it out of Israel.
Ben:
You’re missing something very important here. Even if one leaves aside the illegality of Israeli settlements in any part of the West Bank, Netanyahu’s (and the Jerusalem Post’s) claim that there is “consensus” on incorporating Ariel or Maale Adumim into Israel in a two-state settlement is – bluntly – a lie by any account. President Bush PREVENTED Israel from extending the security barrier around Ariel, precisely because the US did NOT accept that Ariel would end up in Israel, given its location – see e.g. link to npr.org
.
And if even President Bush didn’t accept that, I think we can safely say that no Palestinian negotiator has ever done so either. Netanyahu is trying to extend the concept of “consensus blocs” from border areas (like Gush Etzion, where – rightly or wrongly – a lot of people on all sides assume that it will end up in Israel via land-swaps) to smuggle in places way inside the West Bank that no one outside the Israeli far right thinks can ever be in Israel under a two-state settlement.
bingo. Someone needs to tell the Israelis that consensus is when a broad group of people support something not when just you and the superpower who rubber stamps for you agree to it.
But my point was that in this case not even the superpower agrees with the supposed “consensus”. No one does outside Israel, as far as I can see.
Several tv networks say he is ARAB-Israeli lest people were to form a mistaken opinion that Jewish Israelis are capable of violence.
there are arab jews y’know. now all arab israelis are palestinian.
Ever since Oslo 1993, the idea has been to outsource the occupation to a contractor. In this case, the contractor turned out to be the Palestinian Authority headed by Abbas.
Actually it’s a joint venture with the CIA. That organization being the unparalleled expert at destroying democratic governments.
The exact point made by Rashid Khalidi in his excellent talk from 2007 on internal Palestinian politics.
The PA is little more than an administrative arm of the Israeli occupation, designed to give the false impression that Palestinians have a degree of autonomy (“Look! They have a President and a PM”) over their lives. Khalidi also points to the brouhaha about Hamas recognising Israel – participating in the PA elections in 2005/06 was in fact de-facto recognition of Israel.
‘Rashid Khalidi – Palestine: 40 Years of Occupation, 60 Years of Dispossession’
link to video.google.com
re; israeli serial stabber: serial killers are defined from the neck up – for their sickness
re; borders – if israel wants to give up land of an equal area in israel proper to compensate for the settlement areas they plan to keep in Palestinian territory then maybe there could be a deal … but the chances of that happening are slim to none
To all of you,
Where can I get access to physical maps and resource maps of Israel/WB ? I’ve been trying for quite some time this morning and I always end up hitting water.
Aquifers, farmable land, etc.