At The Nation, Nadia Hijab and Jesse Rosenfeld write:
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has staked his political credibility on securing a Palestinian state by 2011 in the entire West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, a program enthusiastically embraced by the international community. Ambitious PA plans include roads and other infrastructure across the West Bank, with funds provided by the United States, Europe and other donors.
Fayyad has argued that development will make the reality of a Palestinian state impossible to ignore. However, many of the new roads facilitate Israeli settlement expansion and pave the way for the seizure of main West Bank highways for exclusive Israeli use.
For decades Israel has carried out its own infrastructure projects in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. These include a segregated road network that, together with the separation wall Israel began building in 2002, divides Palestinian areas from each other while bringing the settlements–all of which are illegal under international law–closer to Israel.
Now, armed with information from United Nations sources and their own research, Palestinian nongovernmental organizations are raising the alarm. Their evidence spotlights the extent to which PA road-building is facilitating the Israeli goal of annexing vast areas of the West Bank–making a viable Palestinian state impossible.
This is a fake problem. “Facts on the ground” are not legal facts and are not, in facts, permanent facts. Just look at all the things Israel (not to mention the USA) has destroyed with bombs! Facts, indeed.
If a Democratic Single State (DSS) ever replaces the current Apartheid Single State (ASS), all the roads will be usable by all the people.
If there is a Palestinian State (PS) to replace the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Israeli-Only roads within its territory will become Palestinian roads.
The PA and Hamas (or its friends) should be asking the UNSC to address the WALL and SETTLEMENTS first at the level of finger-shaking (tsk-tsk-ing) and later at the level of chapter VII enforcement. It’s time for Palestine to recover its land (and its highways).
A bothersome fact. To change will cost $40 million.
How many crippled or paralyzed US service personnel can be helped with $40 million American txpayers money?
Read the following:- San Diego News
Share
E-Mail News Alerts
Get breaking news and daily headlines.
Browse all e-mail newsletters
Related To Story
Video: Cost To Mask Swastika-Shaped Complex Scrutinized
Cost To Mask Swastika-Shaped Complex Scrutinized
POSTED: 5:50 pm PDT April 27, 2010
UPDATED: 8:26 pm PDT April 27, 2010
SAN DIEGO — The cost to fix a group of buildings in San Diego that many have found terribly offensive has skyrocketed, 10News learned.
From the ground, a cluster of buildings on Naval Amphibious Base Coronado look ordinary. However, from above the buildings are constructed to form a swastika shape.
The buildings were supposed to have been modified nearly three years ago, but the complex has not been touched.
“It’s hard to understand why this is taking so long. Am I angry? No. Am I disappointed? Yes,” said Morris Casuto of the Anti-Defamation League.
Casuto was one of several community members who pressed the U.S. Navy to do something about the design in 2007.
“It dishonors our service people to have them living in a building in the shape of a swastika,” said Casuto.
As a result, the Navy’s plan was to spend $625,000 on a single-rooftop canopy to mask the design. However, that plan was quickly scrapped because many saw it as insufficient.
Navy officials told 10News it has a new, larger-scale plan to transform the current buildings into a new design that would include a series of connections to mask the swastika and at the same time create more square footage and infrastructure to support rooms and additional sailors.
The price tag for the Navy’s latest proposal is between $17 million and $40 million, and it is to be submitted for the 2011 fiscal year.
“The price tag of $17 million to $40 million just doesn’t make any sense to me, and as a taxpayer it’s just irresponsible,” said Rhonda Deniston of Oceanside-based watchdog group Stop Taxing Us.
A former member of the military, Deniston said she is sympathetic toward those who are offended by the design, but also finds the proposed cost of the Navy’s plan “offensive.”
“It’s a perfect example of what taxpayers are talking about right now within not only the federal level, but also the state and local level, that money is being spent in incredibly irresponsible ways,” added Deniston.
But what many find most surprising is that Navy officials did not become aware of the design until after the 1967 groundbreaking and decided not to do anything then.
“It seems to me that it is virtually impossible to believe that no one noticed that shape,” said Casuto.