Yishai vows to settle Jews in east Jerusalem

[Donald Ian Rankin]

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3710259,00.html

Interior Minister Eli Yishai said Sunday that he was developing a plan to settle Jews in the City of David in Jerusalem. "The City of David and everywhere in Jerusalem that was the origin of our growth is our sovereign right," he said.

Yishai was speaking at a meeting with Jewish entrepreneurs who had purchased property in the east Jerusalem village of Silwan. In response, a Palestinian official said Israel's government was "a government of settlers and settlements".

Yishai spoke ahead of a Jerusalem Municipality meeting set to determine construction plans for the City of David. He promised to create a Jewish settlement alongside the Palestinian ones in the area.

The plan is a step away from former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's policy, which tended towards the relinquishing of certain areas of Jerusalem.

***More at link***

[PDJane]

1. More of the Genocide.........

there are people living on that property. Where are they going to go? Why should Israel have any part of that land?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. Nonsense.

What Israel is doing may eventually amount to ethnic cleansing, but accusing Israel of genocide makes it easier to dismiss legitimate criticism of Israel.

[LeftishBrit]

6. Absolutely!

It's a wrong and immoral policy IMO, but it's not genocide. And calling it that both makes legitimate criticisms less likely to be taken seriously, and trivializes real genocides.

[cali]

7. Amazing that people can be so utterly ignorant of what constitutes

genocide- or so eager to demonize that they intentionally use the word where it doesn't apply. I suspect the latter here.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Manifest Destiny with chicken soup and matzo balls

and despite it flavour, equally repugnant as our American brand.

[Amiga500]

3. The Palestinian response.

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3710259,00.html

In response an advisor to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told Ynet that "this proves the current government in Israel is a government of settlers and settlements, and not a government of negotiation".


Khatem Abed al-Kader went on to call Yishai's announcement "silly and dangerous", and said that they would have profound effects on Jerusalem's status quo. "The Palestinian residents of Silwan are not just going to sit by," he said.

He accused the Jewish entrepreneurs of illegally overtaking Palestinian land. "Everything is illegal and even the claims of Jewish artifacts in the area have never been proven. That's why the Israelis have gone from finding artifacts to producing them," he said.



Kader said all of east Jerusalem was Palsetinian land. "Yishai should get the term 'unified Jerusalem' out of his head because it is not and will never be unified," he added, calling on the international community to "consider this government a criminal government whose policy violates international laws and agreements".

[Scurrilous]

5. In other news:

Rabbi: Older bachelors must leave Jerusalem

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3709700,00.html

Unmarried haredi men over the age of 20 who are not yeshiva students had better leave capital, rules Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, son of Shas' spiritual leader

<snip>

"Ultra-orthodox bachelors over the age of 20 must move out of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, head of the Hazon Yaakov yeshiva and son of Shas' spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ruled this week.

According to the rabbi, who publishes a weekly column on the Eretz Israel Shelanu leaflet, in the past it was customary to banish "older" single men from the capital as punishment for their refusal to marry and provide for a family.

In recent generations, Sephardi rabbis decided to annul this regulation, but according to Rabbi Yosef it should be reinstated. "Only a yeshiva student who studies Torah has an exceptional permission to postpone marriage, if he fears that marriage might distract him from his studies.

"But normally one must not delay marriage till after 20, and those who do had better leave Jerusalem and go study somewhere else," he wrote."

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. Religion: for when life isn't difficult enough otherwise. N.T.