Middle East: The Sky’s the Limit
Israel’s economy is a shambles. But the perks to people willing to settle in the occupied territories keep coming. Is this any way to make peace?

Lisa Nhmani would have preferred to stay in Jerusalem but she couldn’t afford to buy a house for her family of five. The four- bedroom homes she was seeing ran about $250,000, much more than the Nahmanis could manage. She began looking at neighborhoods beyond the Green Line—the border that divides Israel from the occupied West Bank—and at settlements deeper in Palestinian territory.

THE DIFFERENCES WERE ASTONISHING. In a town like Maaleh Adumim, the largest settlement in the West Bank, the schools and health services were better (funded more generously by the government), and the houses were cheaper, in part because the government subsidizes construction. As a bonus, she discovered, Israelis who moved to the West Bank got a 7 percent reduction in income tax. Just because they were settlers.
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thanks to Cursor

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State Dept. report: Weakening of PA increased attacks on Israel

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday said that Israel had made Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority less effective by destroying its security infrastructure, and it absolved Arafat and his senior associates of responsibility for attacks on Israelis in 2001.

According to the annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001" report, IDF operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank damaged Arafat's ability to reign in terror, and contributed to an increase in terror attacks against Israel. The attacks sometimes faced criticism from the United States. "Certainly the military activity there did do a great deal to damage the security capability and the security apparatus of the Palestinian Authority," Taylor said. The report went on to state that weakening the PA had assisted Hamas and other terrorist organizations in rebuilding terrorist infrastructure.
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Letter From Israel
Fundamentalist Settlers Have a Borough Accent
Blame Brooklyn

No matter who is right, there are sure to be hardcore settlers who would refuse to obey any government order to evacuate. They may not have political or military power, but they have an incredibly big stick—the threat of civil conflict. If only we could send them back to Brooklyn.
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Letter From Jenin
A City of 14,000 Stories

The governor of Jenin, Zuhair Al- Manasreh, a gentle bear of a man, is testy this afternoon, his deep baritone punctuated by bursts of nervous laughter. "You have not even seen the mukhayyam [refugee camp] yet? Well, let's speak later, after you visit." His former office was demolished in an Israeli attack some five months ago. We talk in his large office, spare save for a Palestinian flag, off-peach curtains, and five bullet holes that unceremoniously pierce four separate white walls. He has had a million things to attend to since the May 17 withdrawal of the Israeli forces from this hilly Palestinian town, home to roughly 30,000 people, after this latest "targeted operation." Al-Manasreh's constituents, still reeling from a previous Israeli incursion, seem unable to regain their balance.

"This time, they destroyed five houses, arrested 40 people, and injured three," says Al-Manasreh. "The Israelis gave no reason for the attack, and they have stopped giving reasons."
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