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News :: Miscellaneous |
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did you know? |
Current rating: 3 |
by Janet
(No verified email address) |
01 May 2002
Modified: 02 May 2002 |
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Did you know that the first act of terrorism in the Middle East was committed by the Jewish Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorist group when they bombed the British Embassy in 1946, killing 91 people? |
Did you know that when the Palestine Problem was created by Britain in 1917, more than 90% of the population of Palestine were Arabs, and that there were only 56,000 Jews in Palestine?
Did you know that when Britain passed the Palestinian Problem on to the United Nations for handling in 1947, that the Zionists owned only 6% of Palestine and that this land was taken from the Palestinians by the British government?
Did you know that Israel's occupation of Palestinian land is illegal and that under international law Palestinians have the right to defend themselves against Israel's illegal occupation by any means whatsoever?
Did you know that Israel allots 85% of Palestinian water resources for Jews and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is given to about 400 settlers, while 15% must be divided among Hebron's 120,000 Palestinians?
Did you know that Israeli military checkpoints surround every Palestinian population center in violation of the Oslo Accords? That in numerous Palestinian towns they must pass through a military check point just to cross the street and that the Israeli military routinely makes them wait for hours - without cause or justification - before allowing them to proceed?
Did you know that non-Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in Israel?
Did you know that Palestinian license plates in Israel are color coded to distinguish Jews from non-Jews?
Did you know the Israelis build roads through Palestinian owned territories that only Jews can drive on?
Did you know that Jerusalem, both East and West, is considered by the entire world community, including the United States, to be occupied territory and NOT part of Israel?
Did you know that Palestinian Christians are considered the "living stones" of Christianity because they are the direct descendants of the disciples of Jesus Christ?
Did you know that Israel stands in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council Resolutions?
Did you know that the right of self-determination is guaranteed to every human being under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December, 1948), yet Palestinians were/are expected to negotiate for this right under the Oslo Accords?
Did you know Israel has imposed a system of apartheid upon the Arabs who stayed in their homeland? More than 90% of these Arabs live in "security zones;" they alone live under martial law, restricting their freedom to travel from village to village or from town to town; their children are denied equal opportunities for education; and they are denied decent opportunities for work, and the right to receive "equal pay for equal work?"
Did you know that Israel routinely confiscates Palestinian bank accounts, businesses, and land and refuses to pay compensation to those who suffer the confiscation?
Did you know that it was not until 1988 that Israelis were barred from running "Jews Only" job ads?
Did you know that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?
Did you know that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections from its sites?
Did you know that Israel illegally obtained the technology to build its nuclear weapons by spying on the U.S. Government in the 1960's?
Did you know that Israel currently occupies territories of sovereign nations (Lebanon and Syria) in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?
Did you know that Israel blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt (1954) and attacked a
U.S. ship (1967) in international waters, killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors?
Did you know that the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders, is the Israeli American Israel Public Affairs Commission? In other words, out of all of the huge U.S. corporations and special interest groups, that the AIPA "contributes" more money to political campaigns and lobbying campaigns than all but one other organization? Under these circumstances, do you think it is possible for our political leaders to act without bias with regard to Israel?
Did you know the United States awards Israel $5 billion in aid each year?
Did you know that yearly US aid to Israel exceeds the aid the US grants to the whole African continent?
Did you know that four prime ministers of Israel (Begin, Shamir, Rabin, and Sharon) have taken part in either bomb attacks on civilians, massacres of civilians, or forced expulsions of civilians from their villages?
Did you know that Israel's current prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was found by an Israeli court to be "personally responsible" for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Lebanon in which thousands of unarmed Palestinian civilian refugees were slaughtered in 1982?
Did you know that the Israeli Foreign Ministry pays two American public relations firms to promote Israel to Americans? (Now you know why U.S. media is so biased in favor of Israel).
Did you know that Sharon's coalition government includes a party Molodet: which advocates expelling all Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territories?
Did you know that Israel's (illegal) settlement-building increased in the eight years since Oslo?
Did you know that settlement building under Barak doubled compared to settlement building under Netanyahu?
Did you know that the Palestinians have already accepted Israel's existence on 78% of what was
Palestine. Bible: God said to Abraham, "Unto thy seed, I will give thy land." Abraham had two sons. Ismael-the Arab son, and Isaac-the Jewish son. So even if one wants to go to the Bible, the land would belong to both.
Did you know that despite a ban on torture by Israel's High Court of Justice, torture has continued by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners?
Did you know that Palestinian refugees make up the largest portion of the refugee population in the world?
Did you know that Palestinians have the highest ratio of PhDs per capita in the world?
Did you know that today's Israel sits on the former sites of more than 400 destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the Israelis renamed almost every physical site in the country to cover up the traces?
Did you know that Israel has for decades routinely sent assassins in to other countries to kill its
political enemies?
Did you know that high-ranking military officers in the Israeli Defense Forces have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were Executed by the IDF?
Did you know that Israel refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing civilians and prisoners of war?
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Comments
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Propaganda |
by Josh Michaels
michals1 (nospam) uiuc.edu (unverified) |
Current rating: -1
01 May 2002
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This post can be taken as a very good example of how Palestinan propaganda is heavily exaggerated. Many of the "do you know" statements in this article are NOT TRUE, and others are extremely exaggerated and sensationalized. This post even got one of the most basic facts about the Arab-Israeli conflict WRONG -
Did you know the United States awards Israel $5 billion in aid each year?
In 2001 Israel recieved $2.880 Billion in aid from the US, almost half of what this article claims. (see http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html for a full table of US aid to Israel.) |
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all of Janets post is true |
by DAN
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
02 May 2002
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josh you seem to be a zionazi propoganist liar.
I CHECKED your zionazi propoganda link it is all lies..
just face it josh zionazis are scum bags...
and you josh, are a turd... |
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$81.38 billion to prop up the zionazis |
by Shirl McArthur
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
02 May 2002
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The common argument that the United States gives Israel $3 billion per year-$1.2 billion in economic aid and $1.8 billion in military aid-is misleading. This figure is impressive enough, since it represents about one-sixth of total U.S. foreign aid. Yet the true figure is even more remarkable, with estimates ranging as high as $5.5 billion per year. Calculating the exact amount of U.S. aid to Israel, however, is difficult. One has to make estimates because much of the aid is buried in the budgets of other government agencies, mostly the Department of Defense (DOD). Aid is also allotted in a form that is not easily quantifiable, such as the early disbursement of financial aid which allows Israel to gain (and the U.S. taxpayer to lose) the interest on the funds that have not yet been spent.
Aid to Israel from 1949 to 2001:
According to an October 27 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, cumulative aid to Israel from 1949 through fiscal year (FY) 2000 was $81.38 billion. This number is too low because it omits "hidden" funds. While it includes the $1.2 billion promised to Israel in the Wye River Memorandum, the old Food for Peace program, and the current subsidy for "refugee resettlement," it omits money from the DOD budget on the grounds that those funds are for research and development projects that benefit both the United States and Israel-a questionable premise. The CRS total also excludes estimated interest on the early disbursement of aid.
Building up from the amount listed in the CRS, I have included-with details to follow-$4.28 billion from the DOD and $1.72 billion from interest accrued due to early aid disbursement. This comes to a total of $87.38 billion through September 30 of this year (the end of FY 2000). Add to this amount the $3.98 billion for FY 2001: This number includes $840 million in economic aid, $1.98 billion in military aid, $60 million for refugee resettlement, $250 million from the DOD budget, and $85 million in interest. The resulting grand total of the above calculations is $91.36 billion in aid to Israel through FY 2001.
Department of Defense:
Examining specific items from the DOD to Israel and from there estimating on the total costs, I arrived at approximately $3.42 billion. The largest expenditures were $1.3 billion for the cancelled Lavi attack fighter project, $628 million for the ongoing Arrow anti-missile project, and $200 million for the completed Merkava tank. The fact that the U.S. military was not interested in the Lavi, the Arrow, or the Merkava for its own use would seem to call into serious question the argument that these are "joint defense projects."
Interest:
Foreign aid is typically allocated out in quarterly installments. However, Israel began receiving early disbursement of U.S. economic aid in 1982, and of military aid in 1991. This special treatment has resulted in a significant payoff for Israel. According to the CRS statement cited earlier, in 1991 it was reported that Israel earned $86 million in interest on the economic aid money deposited in the U.S. Treasury. Since the period from 1982 to 1991 had relatively high interest rates, I used the figure of $860 million (86 x 10) as a conservative estimate for those 10 years. For the nine years since 1991, I used a six-percent rate for one-half of the economic aid, resulting in a total of $324 million. Regarding military aid, I applied the six-percent rate to one-half of the amount for the 10 years of aid that was disbursed early, or $540 million. I employed this reduced rate on only half of the amount because one must assume that the aid monies were drawn down over the course of the year.
Loans and Loan Guarantees:
Israel owes the U.S. government almost $3 billion in economic and military loans. Israeli officials are fond of saying that Israel has never defaulted on a loan from the United States. While this is technically true, the CRS report states that from FY 1994 through FY 1998, Israel received $29 billion in waived loans. It is, therefore, reasonable to consider all loans to Israel as generally the same as grants.
The amount of U.S. government loan guarantees to Israel was not included in the above calculations because they have not (yet) cost the United States any money. They are listed as "contingent liabilities"-that is, they would become liabilities to the United States should Israel default. The major loan guarantees were $600 million for housing between 1972 and 1990, the much publicized $10 billion for Soviet Jewish resettlement between 1992 and 1997, and about $5 billion to refinance military loans commercially. Currently, the total U.S. contingent liability for Israeli loans is about $10 billion.
U.S. Aid to Other Countries in the Region:
This impressive amount of aid becomes even more so when compared with the aid given to other countries in the Middle East. The $3 billion in annual aid to Israel-according to the most conservative estimate-compares with bout $2 billion for Egypt, $225 million for Jordan, and $35 million for Lebanon. U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) is not earmarked, but it has been running at about $100 million a year.
Furthermore, the United States gives Israel all of its economic aid directly in cash, without requiring an accounting of how the funds are used. In contrast, aid to the PA is strictly controlled by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and is specified for particular programs, mostly for civil infrastructure projects. Special mention should also be made of the Wye agreement. All of the $400 million promised to the PA in the agreement is for economic aid, whereas all of the $1.2 billion for Israel is for specific military projects.
The only condition on the military aid to Israel from the foreign aid bill is that about 75 percent of it has to be spent in the United States. In addition, in contrast with other countries receiving military aid who purchase through the DOD, Israel deals directly with U.S. companies-with no DOD review. The military aid from the DOD budget is mostly for specific projects. These projects include the Merkava tank. As mentioned earlier, Israel has used these tanks against Palestinian protestors and to bomb civilian areas in cities and villages such as Ramallah and Beit Jala.
Despite international condemnation of Israels harsh repression of the Palestinian uprising, President Bill Clinton is asking for U.S. aid to increase. On November 4 Clinton requested that Congress consider granting an extra $450 million to Israel, with a suggestion that next years military aid to Israel increase by $350 million.
Shirl McArthur is a congressional correspondent for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. The above text may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the author and to the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine. This Information Brief does not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine or The Jerusalem Fund.
Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine / 2425-35 Virginia Avenue, NW / Washington, DC 20037 / Tel: 202.338.1290 / Fax: 202.333.7742 / http://www.palestinecenter.org < http://www.palestinecenter.org/ >
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Facts Please, Not Trashtalk |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
02 May 2002
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While I disagree with much of what Josh has said about the article above, Dan undermined the positive effect of the article itself by dragging out the tired, over-used, and basically untrue term "zionazis". While Dan is entitled to his opinion, he needs to realize that he will win no friends among the undecided by his juvenile and crude hurling of invective which undermines any attempts to actually engage in thoughtful and persuasive consideration of these issues by readers. |
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