Israel presents plan for more than 100,000 Palestinian jobs

[Herschel]

Israel has presented the Bush administration with a plan to alleviate hardships for Palestinians, including factories in the West Bank that would employ at least 100,000 Palestinian workers.

A pullback of Israeli troops from some Palestinian towns and an easing of roadblocks to Palestinian travel were also offered by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz in talks with White House officials last week, an Israeli official said Wednesday.

The factories, or industrial zones, would be at the border between Israel and the West Bank. There would be jobs for 100,000 to 120,000 Palestinian workers, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/11/19/national1243EST0594.DTL

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Should this come to pass, we can hope proper gratitude is shown. Hopefully there will not be some using it as an avenue to bring terror.

[bluesoul]

1. Gratitude?

LOL, and all the rest that is happening in the OT?

[Herschel]

2. This would be a goodwill gesture

Surely you would applaud such a step. Be glad.

[bluesoul]

9. If Israel

would make those gestures elsewhere (regarding the settlements, the wall that is destroying any hopes and other more importan things) then I would be more glad. This can be aplauded but this won't change some key aspects that have to do with the conflict, surely you would agree Herschel. Palestinians have their part to do (dismantling terrorist organisation, Israel it's policy that isn't helping the situation)...

[Herschel]

11. This gesture alone

is a positive thing. There will always be the temptation to refer to other incidental issues rather than embrace Israel's generosity and goodness.

[dai]

12. "Incidental issues"

Indeed you are correct. Such a gesture, considered in the absence of greater context, is a positive development.

However, labeling aspects of the occupation as "other incidental issues" is terribly callous. Checkpoints, curfews, incursions, etc. are only "incidental" when they happen to someone else. And so, skepticism towards "Israel's generosity and goodness" is natural.

[Herschel]

14. Perhaps "peripheral"

would have been a better term.

[Muddleoftheroad]

8. Similar attitude

Sadly, I expect a similar attitude from the Palestinians, which is why this is a waste of time.

Build the wall. Cut off all ties to the Palestinians. Wait for them to offer real peace.

[Herschel]

19. Your thoughts often mirror my own

The prospect of 100,000 jobs is not seen as a wonderful step. Oh, my.

[Classical_Liberal]

24. You want them starving!

ok!

[Muddleoftheroad]

31. Nope

If they run out of food, I have said before that Israel should facilitate UN food shipments there. OR Arafat could spend some of his stolen billions on food.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[drdon326]

4. "Zionist masters"

nice

:puke:

[La_Serpiente]

5. What the hell is this?!?

ISrael is probably going to want something in exchange.

Settlements anyone?

[xultar]

6. THAT WAS QUICK * says stop the daily humiliation and 5 mins later

BLAMMO, they've got 100,000 jobs planned out. Ummmm Hummmm we aren't that stupid.

[Gimel]

7. Planned industry

This goes back to before Intifada II. A lot of plans got scraped when suicide bombers started daily incursions making explosions all over Israel and killing hundreds with bombs filled with nails and shrapnal. Nice way to be grateful.

[Herschel]

10. Well said

As I alluded to, this gesture may reap terror rather than gratitude. We can hope it does not.

[Gimel]

22. With a new PA ;-)

We hope that there will be a better response this time.

[tinnypriv]

13. This is a strand on the non-lunatic Israeli business spectrum

It makes sense to employ Palestinians for two reasons:

1. Makes Palestine an economic neo-colonial dependency.
2. Uncuts the Israeli state welfare system.

The basic objections to this are those in Israel who don't want to emply Arabs, period. I presume the motivation for that is obvious and doesn't need to be stated.

[Muddleoftheroad]

15. One smart thing

It talks about factories in the West Bank, so that eliminates the threat of large numbers of Palestinians traveling to Israel.

[tinnypriv]

17. It's "smart", in a certain sense

The basic equivalent is the integration of eastern european countries into the EU, in order to undercut state welfare systems (by threat of moving production across state borders).

Or NAFTA, vis a vis the US and Mexico.

This has been the basic plan for a long time. It's smart for business, bad for Israelis.

I imagine hisdrut etc would have plenty to say about this.

[The Magistrate]

18. A Good Point, Mr. Priv

It is really not too dissimilar from the practice in the period not long after the '67 war. There was a good deal of Israeli financing of both Jewish and Arab owned enterprises in the Jordan valley in those years, to take advantage of lower wages. It is one of the grounds for defining the relation of Israel to these lands as colonial. It is also an illustration of the impetus to economic integration inherent in the situation of both peoples, that if unimpeded would certainly work to the benefit of the people of Arab Palestine, though in some ways, as you point out, it might work to the detriment of many working Israelis.

Likud is in many ways attempting the same swindle as the Republicans do here; getting themselves into power on issues other than economic ones, and then using the position thus gained to impose "free marketeer" ideological prescriptions on people's pocketbooks. This is probably the greatest threat to Sharon's political position, that a great many Israelis are realizing the economic woes beseting them have less to do with war than with Netanyahu's Finance Ministry. The recent pronouncements of respected military and security officials, current and retired, questioning Sharon's military efficacy, provide a sort of cover for this feeling, letting Israelis know they can be against Sharon without being against security. The shrewdest blow the Arab Palestinian leadership could strike against Sharon today would be foregoing the use of violence, and arresting selected jihadists. Deprived of his "security" card, Sharon would tumble unsupported.

[BlackFrancis]

20. A compliant Palestinian population would vindicate Sharon

There will never, ever, be a recognition that Palestinian Arab leadership did anything to aid security. Sharon would be given credit for showing that if you are brutal and violent enough with the Palestinians they will give up.

True if the entire issue faded out of public view it may or may not hurt Sharon if he had to run on the economy instead of security but it provides a precedent that there is no need to deal politicaly with Palestinians, you just need to drop enough bombs on Gaza and make their lives a living hell with the security apparatus until they surrender.

[The Magistrate]

21. And The Continued Futile Violence, Sir

Does what to to improve the situation of the people of Arab Palestine?

It brought Sharon to power, and it maintains him there. Its continuance guarantees he will remain in power.

You call for a policy, Mr. Francis, that will do nothing but ensure the continued constriction and slow expropriation of the people of Arab Palestine. That is what the policy of violence has brought through all the decades it has been employed; that is all it will ever bring in future.

[BlackFrancis]

23. not so

Various Palestinian voices have said that entire point of the second intifada is to prove that Israel cannot impose a military solution on their political grievances. They know they can't impose a military solution either. I think the point has been made but if Israeli's disagree and want to prove that they can I think it would be an incredible waste of all the blood that has been spilt on either side to prove them right by surrendering.

[The Magistrate]

29. All Blood Shed Is A Waste, Mr. Francis

You have just recapitulated the rationale behind persistence in Viet Nam, and the leading argument for remaining in Iraq. It is a foolish argument. There is no excuse for persisting in a failed policy, and on a course that can only do further harm.

Arab Nationalist leadership embarked on a policy of violence more than eighty years ago. The situation of their people has grown more straitened, and their prospects more restricted, with each year it has been persisted in. Each successive bout of violence has left less land at their disposal. All their violence has ever achieved has been to empower their enemies, and to enrage the ordinary folk of Israel.

It is nonsense to imagine a military solution cannot be imposed in this matter: it certainly can. All that is required for it is a disregard of diplomatic complications. People who are filled with fear and rage are notoriously inclined to disregard abstract consequences. Continuing a course of violence will eventually so harden Israeli opinion that the utmost force will be used. Do not imagine you have yet seen anything remotely resembling that contingency.

[Classical_Liberal]

25. I wonder if their products get the made in Israel tag

like the the settler junk?

[BlackFrancis]

26. completely off topic but..

I'm still wondering if they got new boots for the marines in Iraq. In Gulf War I the footprint left a "made in Israel" stamp in English and Hebrew.

[Lurking Dem]

27. Link, please.

[BlackFrancis]

32. ask any DS1 vet..

There is a footnoted mention about in Dangerous Liasons by Cockburn, it's out of print but local libraries might carry it.

[tinnypriv]

28. More than likely

I attended a demonstration about this sort of thing vis a vis Marks and Spencer once. Pretty much ignored by the media, but there you go.

The EU simply doesn't want to enforce the rules already in place, for obvious reasons.

[drewb]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.


There you go... That should save the mods some time...

[Classical_Liberal]

30. Palestinians shouldn't take them

They shouldn't pay their way. They'll just be making their subjugation profitable for Sharon's business friends. Palestinians should become a tax burden on Israel till Israel acts like it wants two states.