Israel To Stop Funding Illegal Settlements

Government Aid To Unauthorized Outposts To Be Cut Off, Setting Stage For Standoff

(CBS/AP)  An Israeli official said Monday the government would cut off funding for unauthorized outposts in the West Bank.

Government spokesman Mark Regev said Defense Minister Ehud Barak had two weeks to begin taking steps and report back to the Cabinet. Regev said it was "a matter of the rule of law."

CBS News correspondent Robert Berger reports that the outposts have never officially been authorized by the Israeli government, but have received tacit assistance for years.

The Cabinet decided Sunday to ratchet up law enforcement measures directed at extremist settlers. It also decided to halt government funding for the some 100 outposts built by settlers.

The government has promised in the past to evacuate outposts but has done nearly nothing.

The crackdown came a day after a security chief warned that Jewish extremists could try to assassinate an Israeli leader.

Meanwhile, Tuesday's U.S. election is already having an impact on the Middle East peace process, reports Berger.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says President Bush's goal of a peace agreement with Israel in 2008 cannot be achieved. Abbas said the reason is the American election, and early elections in Israel scheduled to take place in February.

Abbas said negotiations would resume after the elections in both countries.

Also Monday, the exiled leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas was in Beirut for a rare visit to meet with Lebanese leaders.

The Syria-based Khaled Mashaal's trip to Beirut is his first known visit since Israeli warplanes destroyed his faction's office in the Lebanese capital during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

His movements are largely kept secret because of assassination fears.

Lebanon's National News Agency says Mashaal arrived Monday and held talks with the country's president and other leaders about the situation in Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps.

The dispute between Hamas and the other major Palestinian faction, Fatah, has raised tensions among Lebanon's 400,000 Palestinian refugees.

[formrusmcsgt]

The government has promised in the past to evacuate outposts but has done nearly nothing.
----
Why the change?

Maybe Israel sees an end to the turning of a blind eye by America regarding the illegal settlements?

[closethippy1]

Why does the US media keep giving the benefit of the doubt to the people who are taking land and not to the people who are losing it???
The only answer I have to that question is made up of two words: AD REVENUES.
Posted by closethippy1 at 03:20 PM : Nov 03, 2008

Perhaps its because the media remembers the history of this struggle. How it was the Jews who begged for peace and the Arabs who repeatedly attacked them and vowed to destroy them... blah, blah, blah..."
Posted by ephd at 06:12 PM : Nov 03, 2008

Really? How about this then:
"If we had invested in the Arab problem a tenth of the energy, the passion, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness which we developed in order to gain the support of Britain, France, the US and Weimar Germany, our destiny in the development of Israel may have been quite different. We were not ready for compromises; we did not regarded as a major problem. We did not make sufficient efforts to get, if not the full agreement of the Arabs, at least their acquiescence to a Jewish state, which I think would have been possible. That was the original sin."
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, President of the World Jewish Congress, writing in 1974.

Yes, indeed, THAT WAS THE ORIGINAL SIN. Even Albert Einstein agreed with this when he said: "Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us."

[zietzke-2009]

Multiple News Sources...


Five Dancing Israelis....
From What Really Happened Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search....GOOGLE

A Mossad surveillance team made quite a public spectacle of themselves on 9/11. The New York Times reported that a group of five Israeli men had set up video cameras aimed at the Twin Towers prior to the attacks, and were seen congratulating one another afterwards.....

After the attacks, The Prime Minister of Israel quoted that "Israel will receive more U.S. funds because of sympathy that will come our way as the results of the terror attacks against the city of New York and the American people" Makes you think ?

[zietzke-2009]

Something to consider.......From CBS News Reports....

"Dancing Israelis"....
When their photos were developed, it was revealed that the dancing Israelis were smiling in the foreground of the New York massacre on 911. ...
www.the7thfire.com/9-11/Pastore_Investigation_of_%209-11/chapter_2--dancing_Israelis.htm - 61k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

[zietzke-2009]

The United States of America has been giving Israel
$ 5 Billion USD per year... for the last 30 years...since the peace accord with Egypt.

Thats over $ 150 Billion U.S. tax payer dollars !
A lot of money !

Has Israel ever paid any of this money back ? Even offered ?

Israel is a good country and its people are honorable...

I just wonder if the American people are tired of giving so much money to Israel, when our own country needs help ? How about spending $ 150 Billion on childhood education, new roads, new schools, power grids or our own children who have Mercury induced AUTISM or other health related problems !

How about we keep our own tax dollars in the U.S. for a change ?

A nice thought !

[ephd]

Why, I have always asked myself, does the US media keep giving the benefit of the doubt to the people who are taking land and not to the people who are losing it???
The only answer I have to that question is made up of two words: AD REVENUES.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by closethippy1 at 03:20 PM : Nov 03, 2008
+ report abuse

Perhaps its because the media remembers the history of this struggle. How it was the Jews who begged for peace and the Arabs who repeatedly attacked them and vowed to destroy them. Only now, after losing all the wars they started, the palestinians cry that the mean Isreali''s keep stealing thier land. Israel was happy with the tiny patch of land govent to them under the British Mandate, it was the greedy Arabs who attacked in 1948 and multiple times since then.

[closethippy1]

This title to this article is a classic example of Israeli bias in the US media because ALL settlements are illegal and not just the outposts.
They are all illegal under international law and Israel is the only country in the world who has an interpretation of the law contrary to everyone else.
So why does CBS feel a need to go along with it by calling the outsposts "illegal settlements" as if the other Jewish settlements were not?
Why, I have always asked myself, does the US media keep giving the benefit of the doubt to the people who are taking land and not to the people who are losing it???
The only answer I have to that question is made up of two words: AD REVENUES.

[navyjimfl]

tough times coming for the jewish nation......Obama will not be the supporting president they are used to...

[gramto8]

Sounds like you were expecting a bit too much there, grouchyjohn. Why would Isreal even think about arresting them? My goodness gracious! I''m totally shocked they are considering pulling the monetary support.

[grouchyjohn]

No mention of actually ARRESTING the illegal settlers / squatters that kicked the innocent out of their homes, and off of their lands?

Oh that''s right! Silly me.....

They''re jews, therefore they can do whatever they want to the Palestinians with impunity.