Israel flouts road map with new settlement

Israel has announced plans for thousands of homes in a new settlement near Jerusalem, ignoring its undertaking in the road map to freeze settlement activity. The proposed settlement, on 1,518 hectares (3,750 acres) of West Bank land, would be sited between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim and provide a bridge between them. It has been planned secretly for several months and yesterday bulldozers and diggers were preparing roads for fu ture building. The settlement would ring Palestinian east Jerusalem, making it impossible for east Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian state.

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A People Behind Walls
The Wall imposes immense and unnecessary suffering on the Palestinian people.
World Court (ICJ) The Hague.

The road carves out its path like a long silver snake, slithering through virgin mountainsides, turning olive groves into concrete slabs It’s guarded by armed border police squatting on rocky outposts, positioned every 25 meters along the route. Bulldozers roar, churning up savage clouds of red dust, while earthmovers delve into volcanic like ditches that herald the beginning of a 25ft high razor fence. A young donkey with a foal in tow hesitates before the ditch unable to proceed further and obviously confused its familiar journey no longer possible. There is no path for man or beast. Large tracts of fertile land stand marooned, and forcibly abandoned, their owners denied access. Patches of old tattered green canvas once a carpet for the olives lie scattered here and there, together with remnants of perhaps what was once the scene of a picnic celebration. Olives trees harvested for centuries, their upturned roots now bared to the sky, plants and herbs long used in traditional Palestinian cuisine wither in the dry grass. Aside from the presence of Israeli police and Palestinian labourers there is not a villager in sight.

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Colin Powell and My Grandmother
Watching It Unfold

Where Israel is concerned, U.S. foreign policy never ceases to amaze. When Palestinian in-fighting took place in Gaza last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell had the following to say about the United States' position: "Just have to watch it unfold." Interestingly enough, my grandmother's position was the same and it is unclear who announced it first. The majority of Americans may just brush over such ridiculous comments from the U.S. Secretary of State, but I, for one, refuse to allow it to pass without comment. As a tax-paying American citizen, my tax dollars deserve to be better employed. Hiring senior policy advisors who can't tell the difference between cause and effect does not serve the American people's interests.

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  thanks to Aron's Israel Peace Weblog

CSM column on Arafat, US policy
by Helena Cobban

I have a column in the CSM today about Arafat. It also has a recommendation for what the US could reasonably do, right now and also after the November election, to help improve the situation. The segué there is this crucial argument: [The] trends in Palestinian politics are extremely important to the US, because Washington's recent policies on the Palestinian issue are cited by Muslims worldwide as one of the main reasons for their strong opposition to Washington. It may be true that Mr. Sharon is now willing to pull back from the tiny, overpopulated Gaza Strip. But what Muslims around the world see is that he continues to implant thousands of new Israeli settlers each month into the West Bank, including East Jerusalem - a holy city for Muslims, as well as Jews and Christians. When Washington continues to give Israel generous and unconditional support despite Sharon's pursuit of the West Bank settlement project, that seriously undercuts US ability to win Muslim support in the campaign against global terrorism. Now, I wish I'd put that point up to the very top of the piece. Bush's flagrantly unfair, inhumane, and destructive policy on the Palestinian issue is really the big, unmentioned elephant in the room in all the current discussions in the US discourse over "what can we do to undercut support for Al-Qaeda".

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