Slashdot Mirror
Israel To Get Massive Countrywide Optical Upgrade
A Google Fiberhood-style rollout in the U.S., says a Goldman-Sachs estimate, would cost in the neighborhood of $140 billion. Even for Israel, a country approximately the size of New Jersey, there's a high pricetag ("billions of shekels") for installing fiber optics dense enough to reach most of the population, but just a massive fiber-optic rollout is planned, with the project led by Swedish firm Viaeuropa. If the scheme succeeds, it will cover two thirds of the country over the next 10 years or so.
The $140B estimate is for the entire US, according to TFA. That's about $450/person.
It's worded funny. I don't think there's a dollar amount applied to the Israel rollout. Just "The project will cost billions of shekels to deploy some 25,000 kilometers of fiber optics"
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Nice! Wonder if the illegal settlements get it too? Kinda useless considering their isp only gives access to 400 orthodox enough sites.
captcha: Hooker
Sorry to repost, but I just did a Google conversion: 1,000,000,000 Israeli New Sheqel equals 268,190,000 US Dollars
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Whoops. I guess I am guilty of quickly scanning. I'd assumed that because the title was about Israel that the first amount shown would be for the cost to Israel. Please mod my OP down.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Anyone else read the headline and think everyone was getting new prescription eyeglasses?
The way I read it is that it would cost $140B to roll out fiber over the entire United States.
Israel would be "billions of shekels", what that is in USD I have no idea.
Here in Uruguay we are rolling out fiber optics for the entire country (3.5 million people approx.), with about 240,000 connections by now, and connections for all populated centers of 3500 homes and above by 2015. Price tag is about U$S 550 million. I think the plan is to replace the entire copper infrastructure in a few years. Each country is different, but in principle it's doable... (Of course we have the advantage of a state monopoly on wired telecommunications. Yes, I do mean advantage.) See http://www.elobservador.com.uy/noticia/236698/fibra-optica-un-plan-estrategico-de-us-550-millones/ use Google Translate for the Spanish-impaired.
its all taxes to fight their wars
i sold an old iphone 4 to someone in israel for $200. it costs a lot more if you buy it locally there
To put that in perspective, it is slightly less than the 2010 USA Navy budget (149 billion) :)
Israel needs tanks and nukes to fight palestinians with stones, not phiber optical infra-structures :)
Goldman-Sachs estimate is a bunch of B.S. The baby Bells in the late 80s to mid 90s rolled out fiber to cover the entire U.S., this is just posturing by G.S. to extract more money from the citizens by justifying metered internet or promoting a paying only for packets sent, yet receiving packets are free. F u k u Neocons some day soon Americans will awake from their slumber.
*grins wide*
Because you can't spout out that much cr*p without grinning wide...
Dude, wake up... even the Israeli Prime Minister acknowledges that many current and planned settlements are in violation of internationally-recognized borders, and he openly admits that he doesn't give a rat's ass. When even the puppets running the institution that you are white-knighting for decide that defending their actions is a waste of time, it may be time for you to take up a different hobby.
Israel dismantled 18 settlements in the Sinai Peninsula in 1982, and all 21 in the Gaza Strip and 4 in the West Bank in 2005, but continues to both expand its settlements and settle new areas in the West Bank in spite of the Oslo Accords, which specified in article 31 that neither side would take any step that would change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations. However, Israeli settlement expansion has continued unabated.The international community considers the settlements in occupied territory to be illegal. Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and communities in the Golan Heights, areas which have been annexed by Israel, are also considered settlements by the international community, which does not recognise Israel's annexations of these territories. The United Nations has repeatedly upheld the view that Israel's construction of settlements constitutes violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The International Court of Justice also says these settlements are illegal, and no foreign government supports Israel's settlements.
500 meter wide utility corridors are being cut through Palestinian neighborhoods and agricultural land in preparation for fiber rollout.
Lets hope they also upgrade their connectivity to the rest of the world.
Our company has tech centers in Israel and most of the time it feels like they are connected via dial up.
Even copying files they regularly stall.
Because nearly every nation in the world soundly denounces their actions as "illegal" and "infringing upon internationally-recognized borders". Here's about eight pages of citations: https://www.google.com/search?q=israel+illegal+settlements&tbm=nws.
Play semantics all you want, but it doesn't change the facts: they know what they are doing is wrong, and they don't care, so why do you give a crap when somebody calls them on it?
The baby Bells in the late 80s to mid 90s rolled out fiber to cover the entire U.S.
Pretty impressive considering I thought they were more focused on the processed cheese market.
It would come as no surprise whatsoever if a significant percentage of that bandwidth will be dedicated for security purposes. However, I see nothing wrong with that. Israel is not the USA. She is a homeland to a people whom the world hates because they dare present to humanity (brace yourselves) MORALITY. You know stuff that spoils fun, like no f**king outside marriage (adultery) or before marriage (fornication), not forcing input into an output-only device (homosexual activity). She is not a liberty experiment that is about to go bankrupt because people have found it easier to be LAZY than to be AMBITIOUS and vote to maintain an addiction to OPM (other people's money). If I had my say, I would plaster that jurisdiction with the most advanced sensing technology and cameras and back it with some cutting edge AI. Make it so uncomfortable for all potential enemies that they will self-deport.
So all you hypereducated cosmopolitan freaks with the Plaques On The Wall® get ready to gum up your BVD's with jizz over your favorite antisemitic epithets that at this very moment swirl amongst your neurons.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. For the Jews, it is the price of survival.
See the finger come out of the screen and feel it poking YOUR nose and no one else's. If you are not pissed, I have NOT done my job, SCIENCE DAMN IT!
If this is the price of remaining and/or restoring in Divine favor, it's worth it. Perhaps this will please YHWH and stop sending deadly and destructive storms to send America " a message".
Israel has about the population of NYC and it will cost $140 Billion? We are talking $20,000 per person which seems incredibly high, especially when you consider the small amount of land. How can it possibly cost this much?
It doesn't, but why bother at all? Run the fiber to my house so I can hook it to my wireless router? Why not just stick with wireless to begin with? 4G is 100mbps, already faster than the 802.11g most people are using with their wifi router, why would anyone waste billions on fiber when they can just offer 4G? And 10 yrs from now we'll probably all have 5G or 6G, just five years ago in 2007 4G didn't even exist and now we all have 4G cellphones. Landlines are dead, stick with wireless.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Possession is nine tenths of the law. I don't care about the Palestinians if they're too weak or stupid to figure out how to take the land back either with themselves, or with the aid of the mighty Muslim ummah.
So you are actively encouraging the Palestinians to take up violence against Israel! Interesting position...
NB: If Israel wants to take possession of the West Bank, they need to give full citizenship rights to all of the Palestinians, otherwise they are not a democratic state but an apartheid regime.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
" The fiscal year 2013 budget request “includes $3.1 billion in Foreign Military Financing [FMF] for Israel and $15 million for refugee resettlement. Within the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s FY2013 budget request includes $99.8 million in joint U.S.-Israeli co-development for missile defense.""
"To date, the United States has provided Israel $115 billion in bilateral assistance. It is currently the second largest recipient of aid worldwide, with Afghanistan now first."
U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel: 2012 Congressional Report - Christopher Olver | April 26, 2012 ....I realize the US trade empire has a vested interest in a friendly outpost in the middle east, but when will Israel be considered strong enough to stop getting what amounts to charity?
Dude, wake up...
I'm not wearing a bathrobe, don't call me dude.
even the Israeli Prime Minister acknowledges that many current and planned settlements are in violation of internationally-recognized borders,
I don't think there's much debate that many countries don't recognize these territories. Why shouldn't he acknowledge the stated opinions of other countries?
and he openly admits that he doesn't give a rat's ass.
Again, why should he? I don't think it's a newsflash that the countries that attacked Israel and then lost territory are upset about it.
Question for you: If Israel had lost territory during the war, would you be clamoring for Jordan, Syria, or Egypt to return it to them?
When even the puppets running the institution that you are white-knighting for decide that defending their actions is a waste of time,
Puppets? Really? Think about exactly who you're defending here.
it may be time for you to take up a different hobby.
My hobby is enlightening the ignorant, and I will never give it up. There is too much to be done.
Actually that's a blockquote. A citation is when you say where you got your info from.
Here's a citation:
A citation is when you say where you got the information from, not when you just put quote tags around it
See what I mean? That's not really a citation... I just put quote tags around my own words.
I suspect you actually copied and pasted that from somewhere instead of making it up yourself, but if you don't cite that source, then it is impossible to tell the difference between sock puppet and actual citation. I see you've been modded up which means people on /. don't really care whether there's a citation or not as long as it sounds official.
If fiber optic networks' #1 enemy is squirrels, imagine what rockets, grenades, and assorted bombs would do to it. Considering the sensitivity and the repair costs, this seems pretty stupid. They even shy away from putting optical fiber in earthquake areas let alone a recurring war zone.
You're right. I got it from the Israeli settlement page on wikipedia. I was lazy and figured most slashdotters would find it in about 2 seconds :)
And it's also by a Goldman Sachs analyst who /might/ have an interest in valuing the cost as higher than it actually is.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
The war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise bombing raids against Egyptian air-fields after a period of high tension that included an Israeli raid into the Jordanian-controlled West Bank,[11][12] Israeli initiated aerial clashes over Syrian territory,[13] Syrian artillery attacks against Israeli settlements in the vicinity of the border followed by Israeli response against Syrian positions in the Golan Heights and encroachments of increasing intensity and frequency (initiated by Israel) into the demilitarized zones along the Syrian border[14] and culminating in the Egyptian imposition of a naval blockade on Eilat and ordering of the evacuation from the Sinai Peninsula of the U.N. buffer force.
(emphasis mine). Now go back to your hobby. As you say, much to be done.
I don't think there's much debate that many countries don't recognize these territories. Why shouldn't he acknowledge the stated opinions of other countries?
Because 'other countries' enabled the creation of Israel through UN Resolution 181.
I don't think it's a newsflash that the countries that attacked Israel and then lost territory are upset about it.
We don't recognize the accumulation of territory by force as being legitimate. Germany attacked the allies and lost. Ultimately, the victors didn't keep Germany.
Like everything else in Israel - military, technology, ...
Nonsense. If this were the case:
Acquisition of territory by force has happened all through history, is continuing to happen, and will continue to happen for the forseeable future. The supposed illegitimacy of this practice is used as a tool to demonize Israel, but it's completely ignored when anyone else does it.
So you are actively encouraging the Palestinians to take up violence against Israel! Interesting position...
Worse yet, he's inciting Muslims to turn to violence against Israel. Stand by for missiles from the East. With nukes.
they need to give full citizenship rights to all of the Palestinians, otherwise they are not a democratic state but an apartheid regime.
Israel would immediately cease to exist as a Jewish state. If the Palesinians don't outnumber them now, they'll easily outbreed them. And then outvote them. Its going to have to be a two state solution. Which means, when the borders are all settled, some of the Jews who built settlements in the West bank will find themselves under a Palestinian government. One can only hope that they will receive the same treatment as Israelis bestow upon Israeli Arabs.
Don't defend yourself. Sounds great.
Next time someone breaks into your house, make sure you tell yourself not to harm the intruder. Not the perfect analogy, but damn close.
Israel wants to pull out their military from those areas, but terrorist organizations keep attacking the local legal Israel people and the local authorities refuse to help.
The entire international community, including the U.S., the U.N., and the International Court of Justice, consider the settlements to be illegal.
Not only that, but Theodor Meron, the legal counsel of Israel's own Foreign Ministry in September 1967, said so. The Prime Minister’s Office asked him for his opinion on the legality of civilian settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He wrote that it was clearly illegal: “civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
So that was the Israeli government's own official legal opinion.
Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli historian, found a copy of the memo when he was doing research in the archives. http://southjerusalem.com/settlement-and-occupation-historical-documents/
Something tells me they'll receive exactly the same treatment they bestow upon the Israeli Arabs.
That was then, this is now.
After the Second World War and the Nurenberg trials, a bunch of international lawyers (many of them Jewish, I'm proud to say) got together and wrote a set of international laws and agreements, including the Geneva conventions, which most countries signed, which would prevent acquisition of territory by force from ever happening again.
So now it violates international law. And Israel is violating international law.
What Israel's right-wing government is doing also violates basic intelligence. If you want your country to be safe and secure, don't make enemies of everybody in the world. You saw how well that worked for Germany.
I don't think it's a newsflash that the countries that attacked Israel and then lost territory are upset about it.
Newsflash: Israel attacked.
The war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise bombing raids against Egyptian air-fields after a period of high tension that included an Israeli raid into the Jordanian-controlled West Bank,[11][12] Israeli initiated aerial clashes over Syrian territory,[13] Syrian artillery attacks against Israeli settlements in the vicinity of the border followed by Israeli response against Syrian positions in the Golan Heights and encroachments of increasing intensity and frequency (initiated by Israel) into the demilitarized zones along the Syrian border[14] and culminating in the Egyptian imposition of a naval blockade on Eilat and ordering of the evacuation from the Sinai Peninsula of the U.N. buffer force.
Well, how conveeeenient. We (the USA, Russia, etc.) have grabbed all the territory we need, so now we'll make what we did illegal and grandfather ourselves.
There have certainly been other land grabs since the Geneva conventions (Turkey grabbing northern Cyprus; Russia grabbing Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and yet we don't see the hate-fueled virulent outcry against Turkey and Russia that we see against Israel.
What's the alternative? If Israel evacuated the West Bank today, it would have rockets landing in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem tomorrow.
There is no solution to the problem. The best Israel can do is keep a lid on the violence and make sure it only proceeds at a low-level. Eventually, it may find a real peace partner in the Palestinians. But I'm not optimistic. Even the "moderate" Palestinians say very different things in Arabic to their own constituency compared to what they say in English for the international community.
Are facts now considered "crap"?
http://journalistsresource.org/studies/international/conflicts/u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel-2012-congressional-report
*still grinning wide*
Oh, please... This "only nazi say bad things about Israel" BS got tired a long ago.
Don't you have a newer lame excuse instead of that?
What happened to the so inventive "superior ashkenazi IQ"?
Nice. So, everyone else in the world is wrong except for you and your good buddy the US? Because that's who you just called "piece of shit anti-semite, arab, nazi fuckers." That's indicative of a serious mental condition which you should have checked out at your earliest convenience.
Is everyone who introduces you to the facts "garbage," or does that only apply to people not born into the tribe?
Nazi, indeed...
Concerning about Israel, I am very proud of the Czechs.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-puder/czech-israeli-relations-an-enduring-friendship/
Israel Mauser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karabiner_98k
So, the obvious solution is to establish civilian settlements in those areas? Genius! If only we'd used this tactic in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yes, it's quite convenient. Sorry that Israel, a country formed by a consensus of the international community, missed out on the opportunity to gobble up territory through military conflict due to restrictions put into place by the international community. How terrible it is for Israel to be unable to legitimately expand its borders by waging bloody conflicts, as it has traditionally done throughout history.
Do you really understand what it is you're arguing for here? Are you really that fucking stupid?
What's the alternative? If Israel evacuated the West Bank today, it would have rockets landing in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem tomorrow.
That is a false dichotomy used to perpetuate the status quo. True or not, it is no reason for the israeli government to continue with provocative policies like building new settlements.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Take it to the International Criminal Court.
Other than wasting spectrum?
How about the ease in taking down a single tower rather than cutting several lines to kill a large populations connectivity.
Wireless is a stupid solution to any problem that involves a stationary target. Its often times short term easy and short term less expensive, but eventually when you have no more spectrum, you're fucked. Welcome to America's current spectrum issue, morons who thought 'lets just make it wireless!' when it doesn't need to be.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I am arguing for Israel to be treated by the international community (wrt to annexation of territory) exactly the way other countries such as Russia, China and Turkey are treated.
Or if you like, treat those countries the way Israel is treated. But at least have some fairness and consistency.
Easy to say if you live in the US or Canada. Not so easy if you live in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.
I happen to agree. The Israeli government is astoundingly stupid and is compounding Israel's bad PR and international ill-will. Nevertheless, it's one thing to stop building settlements and quite another to withdraw from the West Bank or to expect peace from the Palestinians.
That court doesn't have jurisdiction over Israel since Israel never signed on.
Ah, yes. The sacred and infallible will of the majority of UN members must be respected.
The $140B estimate is for the entire US, according to TFA. That's about $450/person.
LETS DO THIS AND GET DONE WITH ALL THE CURRENT CRAP!
Infrastructure has been a great investment. Right now we spend all our infrastructure money on the DoD in one form or another and we could cut it in half and still be awesome.
LETS DO THIS! Someone with time please organize a petition!
Everyone seems to care about converting to USD? Is that because they think it will be paid for with USD? Maybe so...
Here's a video showing how the United Nations is now acting in a way contrary to its founding principles. This is because the Organization of Islamic Countries and Non-Alignment movement have created a voting bloc. This is why there are bogus resolutions in the UN where criticism of religion (eg. the iron-age barbaric death cult of Islam; read the Qur'an and hadiths, they are true hate speech!) is equivalent to hate speech. Then we have the ITU grasp of the Internet for the purposes of censorship. Here's the video explaining how the UN came to be so corrupted against Englightenment values (and countries with them):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Mupoo1At8
Here's a video showing how sneaky resolutions against Free Speech are being worded and passed in the UN (OIC up to its tricks again):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_Zp4ulrO9c
While we're at it, here is are a couple of videos explaining the situation in the Middle East from a historical perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ByJb7QQ9U
So, Mr Anonymous Coward, your citations are pretty much irrelevant because the United Nations has been making resolutions based on the political totalitarian ideology currently passing bogus resolutions in the UN.
... but they won't stop building settlements... and that is why rational people with no side to take view Israel's leadership, and thus the state, as a piece of shit. They lie through their teeth about peace-seeking, then perpetually agonize and abuse the underdogs and only because they know nobody can back them up when they have the US behind them.
If the US didn't back Israel, they would not be barking loudly at all. They would be passive and actually peace-seeking. With the way the state acts, Israel will *always* be dependent on the US. No neighbors would ever respect them with the way they act if not for fear of the US.
The borders were established in the 1994 treaty between Israel and Jordan. Incidentally, it gives the whole West Bank to Israel. Go look it up.
blah blah blah Look! We're better than Iran, so let us go on stealing water and wiping our ass with the 4th Geneva Convention, because we're a democracy blah blah blah
missing from your bar graph : millions of dead caused by the US.
They increase in God's favor.
4G is shared between so many people that you're never going to get 100 mbps.
The Arab League countries invaded Israel and seized the Gaza Strip and West Bank from Israel.
China invaded Tibet.
Russia invaded Eastern European countries that looked to be going independent.
Russia and China invaded South Korea.
The Viet Cong invaded South Vietnam.
Pakistan invaded India repeatedly and seized half of Kashmir.
A fuckton of Russian-puppet forces conquered the independent former European colonies on the grounds of "national liberation".
The Arab League countries invaded Israel again and lost the Gaza Strip and West Bank that they had previously seized from Israel.
Turkey invaded Cyprus and seized half of the island. This happened after 1967. They still occupy the land illegally. Ask yourself why you have not heard of it.
Iran invaded Lebanon and named the Iranian army there "Hezbollah".
The Taliban invaded Afghanistan in 1994 and seized that country several years after it had become independent of the Soviets.
The Muslim Brotherhood invaded Somalia in the early 1990s, led by a man named Osama bin Laden, and seized the southern half of the country.
The Muslim Brotherhood invaded the Yugoslavian region of Bosnia and wiped out most of the rural Serbian population. You have probably heard of this as Serbs ethnically cleansing Bosnian Muslims. The exact opposite happened.
The Muslim Brotherhood invaded the Yugoslavian region of Kosovo and expelled upwards of 80% of the Serbian population.
The Muslim Brotherhood invaded the southern and western provinces of Sudan, slaughtering any non-Muslims they could find and claiming the land for Islam.
The Muslim Brotherhood sacked and burned the smaller Christian communities of Egypt and claimed their land for Islam. You probably heard of this as the "Arab Spring".
The Muslim Brotherhood invaded and conquered Libya, with guns and air support thanks to President Obama.
The Muslim Brotherhood invaded Syria, with guns again provided by President Obama.
Malaysia is sending armed forces into Thailand to slaughter the Buddhists and claim their land for Islam.
The Muslim Brotherhood is slaughtering non-Muslims in northern Nigeria and claiming their land for Islam.
The Muslim Brotherhood invaded Mali and began destroying the old Muslim shrines belonging to a different strain of Islam that they consider to be heresy.
It looks like those international agreements aren't enforced worth shit and they don't apply to Israel's situation anyway.
It will soon once Palestine signs the Rome treaty. Only one party needs to be a signatory.
The natives are fighting back so we must continue the ethnic cleansing.
missing from your bar graph : millions of dead caused by the US.
I call bullshit. Citation required for "millions" dead caused directly by the US.
stealing water and wiping our ass with the 4th Geneva Convention,
I call bullshit. Citation required for stealing water. What do you mean by "wiping our ass"?
So you support invading nation states, imprisoning cities, and domestic apartheid?
The latest prison shakedown a.k.a. "Operation Cast Lead", really soured people's perceptions of Israel.
BTW, Turkey and Russia are no measure of good government. Not the worst in the world, but Israel can and should do better than that.
Why should I bother? You're just quoting youtube videos. Occupation of Iraq : about 1 million dead. This is quite known. Stealing water and wiping your ass with the 4th Geneva Convention? That's just your state running a military occupation but colonizing the territory, and it's still an occupation if you don't annex it.
So, Vietnam invaded Vietnam?, Yougoslavia invaded Yougoslavia and Kosovo invaded Kosovo? etc. WTF are you smoking.
Don't forget the US invaded Iraq, made it a failed state (that worked) and planned to attack Iraq's neighbors (that failed)
A citation is when you say where you got the information from, not when you just put quote tags around it
See what I mean? That's not really a citation... I just put quote tags around my own words.
Sorry, can't help being pedantic about this. Do you realize that, when you wrote: "I just put quote tags around my own words", you were saying where you got your information from? So, by your definition, your example of something that isn't a citation actually is a citation.
Say it with me now, the JEWS ARE THE NATIVES. History AND Archeology both prove this.
It's not just that it was taken by force, it's that Israel was a signatory to a treaty saying that they wouldn't encroach upon specifically named territories, East Jerusalem being one.
I want to see Israel coexist in peace with Palestine, but these days it is Israel who are the abusive partner in that relationship. Palestinians fire rockets from Gaza, sure. But that simply cannot compare to the might that America has provided Israel with, missile defense systems, attack helicopters, tanks, incendiary weapons, all of which get used against Palestinians on a whim to target specific people or, as in 2008, in a highly destructive assault on civilian populations.
So the argument of "land taken by force" is a weak one and others should have made stronger arguments. But don't let refuting that one claim blind you to the moral weight of the other issues. Again, I want Israel to be a state, and a prosperous one. But not with the current status who which involves military occupation of places like Gaza.
Israel would immediately cease to exist as a Jewish state. If the Palesinians don't outnumber them now, they'll easily outbreed them. And then outvote them. Its going to have to be a two state solution.
Actually, the current Israeli PM is expected to explicitly rule out a two-state solution as his running platform as there are elections looming. He ran and won the last election there under the platform of single-handedly destroying the Oslo Accords and preventing a Palestinian state from being formed. I doubt the Israeli electorate are suddenly going to change and decide that, actually, they do believe in democracy or human rights for non-Jews.
Which means, when the borders are all settled, some of the Jews who built settlements in the West bank will find themselves under a Palestinian government.
No, actually this was, again, explicitly ruled out by the last Israeli government during negotiations, where all Jewish settlement blocks had to be a contiguous part of Israel. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Papers#Borders Apart from the obvious Israeli political abandonment of the two-state solution, the issue of water and resources means that it's just not practical for Israel to abandon the very lucrative occupation just for peace. Right now the occupation is funded by the UN and the EU, with the US flinging billions of dollars at Israel to keep it going. Why abandon such a lucrative source of income?
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
Stop making things up and trolling with your agenda. Please send me the names of "Palestinian" villages specifically in the West Bank that are getting demolished and stolen? We could get into a history and even legal war about the land itself, but to keep it simpler, what you are describing is not.
When there are demolitions, they are typically of houses of terrorists, which mainly has been in Gaza. Secondly, most of the cases of entire villages being demolished are small groups of Bedouins building illegally. Bedouins are nomads, but are known to build structures wherever they feel like it. This can include things like right on protected wild life land, important power/water infrastructure, etc. There isn't a country on this earth with an organized government that would let anyone build anywhere they like without a permit.
It's very simple in this country. If you build on land and you don't have a deed, permit, and meet codes, you risk demolition. It's the same in most western countries as I mentioned. It doesn't matter if you are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Druze (bet you don't even know who these people are), Bahai, whatever. Statistically speaking, more Jewish settlements have been displaced as a gesture for "peace" with terrorists than what you claim. And in some of those cases, yet their building were illegal as well.
Despite what your left-wing American/European person who needs a cause might think (try Syria perhaps?), we don't go around stealing land and demolishing things, raping, and pillaging the land. Our so-called partners for peace do go around blowing things up all the way up to the government level. But just like us, not all of them do bad things either. While you are at it, please read up on the history. Do you know how depressing it is for us to see how much of our history has been destroyed, stolen, and literally been built on top of by squatters (ex: Dome of the Rock, huge parts of East Jerusalem)? Well I promised not to get into it too much.
-An Actual Israeli
"That" referred to the quote, not the quote plus the continuation of the post.
Waiiii!!!!!! I have bad karma!
Why should I bother?
Because you are full of shit and can't prove your assertions? The most reliable figure is the classified figure of civilian deaths is 66,081 civilians killed (leaked by Wikileaks). Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
That makes you wrong by a factor of 15 (as in, your assertion is delusional).
Now if we look at a possible figure that could work for your argument (I'm trying to make your case for you, since you could ) then we have the multi-sigma outlier value of 1.2-1.4 million estimation made by ORB (same reference). Beside the statistical implausibility, and ignoring that the death rate in the US Occupation was lower than Saddam's kill rate of his own populace, their methodology was very flawed and an examination of its methodology found it was "riddled with critical inconsistencies and methodological shortcomings" (no surprised given its anti-war agenda).
So that makes you sloppy at best, or selectively biased at worst. So it appears you are a spreader of easily-disprovable bullshit who is too lazy to cite and too lazy to cross-check your [false] assumptions/assertions.
Stealing water and wiping your ass with the 4th Geneva Convention? That's just your state running a military occupation but colonizing the territory, and it's still an occupation if you don't annex it.
More bullshit that you have *zero* backup evidence for. Look, I'm fully prepared to listen to your arguments. I'm fully prepared to revise my position, provided you can provide some objective evidence for you claims. Somehow you expect everyone to take your outlandish claims (presented in an offensive manner) at face value. Simple objective citations (eg. sourced neither from neocon nor anti-war propagandists) would go a long way to make you look less like a full-of-bs, lazy amateur. Thanks.
But the quote itself doesn't include the information on where it came from (most of the time - I suppose you could quote someone saying something like "I, Joe Schmoe, fifth President of the Republic of hypothetica, declare, on this 32nd day of Smarch, eighteen-elleventy-tweenth in this keynote speech of the 3rd International Conclave of Anorak-Wearing Pedants, that I am not a crook!"), otherwise it wouldn't be a quote. The information on where it came from is generally provided right after the quote, making it a citation. Which is exactly what you did. You might be able to argue that you declared that it wasn't a citation before a subsequent explanation of where the quote came from retroactively turned it into a citation, but written works generally stand as a whole. Additional data on quotes can certainly appear in footnotes, endnotes and even in later passages. It may not conform to some exact MLA handbook version of what a citation must look like, of course.
Nonsense. If this were the case:
Acquisition of territory by force has happened all through history, is continuing to happen, and will continue to happen for the forseeable future. The supposed illegitimacy of this practice is used as a tool to demonize Israel, but it's completely ignored when anyone else does it.
Why stop there.
The Jews would have to give Israel back to the British, who would have to give it back to the Ottomans who would have to give it back to the Arabs, who'd have to swap it with the Europeans for a while until they have to give it back to the Romans who would have to give it back to the Greeks who would have to give it back to the Egyptians who'd have to give it back to the Jews.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Actually, all of what you wrote is nonsense. Eight villages are to be destroyed next year alone: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/24/palestinian-villages-demolition-idf-hebron. There's no doubt in anyone's mind, including the Israeli military's, that the Palestinians own the land, and have done since the late 1800s, well before Israel existed, let alone started expanding. That doesn't matter to Israelis, demolishing Palestinians' homes does.
It's also the case that, where Palestinians have land, they are never allowed permits to build, but that's just a by-product of a racist society that doesn't believe in equal rights or the rule of law. Institutional racism is common and encouraged by successive Israeli governments, who then brag about it to get re-election. The Arab 20% of Israel don't get 5% of the education budget, for example.
Where there is illegal construction by Jews and non-Jews side by side, the non-Jewish buildings are demolished at a rate of 5 times more often than Jewish buildings, for example in East and West Jerusalem, even though there are more illegal Jewish-built buildings in West Jerusalem than there are in East Jerusalem.
I could go on, but as you're either woefully mis-informed or lying your teeth off in an effort to hide the truth about Israel, you'll never admit that what you posted was utterly and completely wrong, so I'll just sign off and hope you don't demolish too many more Palestinian houses in 2013...
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
I could go on, but as you're either woefully mis-informed or lying your teeth off in an effort to hide the truth about Israel,...
http://www.theonion.com/video/911-conspiracy-theories-ridiculous-al-qaeda-says,14222/
(captcha: "backyard")
The Guardian is a propaganda mouthpiece for Jihadis - always has been. Your citing the Guardian is like someone during the Cold War citing Pravda to illustrate that everything in the USSR is hunky dory
Also, all the Pali parties - be it Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, PFLP - claim all of Israel as Palestine. It's not merely West Bank or Gaza that they would be content with. Even if they got Jerusalem, they'd want Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth, everything. Their real goal is in the Hamas charter, which in turn comes from a Sahih Bukhari hadith, that has references to the last Jews being wiped out.
Regardless of what one thinks about Israel, if one entertains Arab (note that Palestinian never historically existed - before 1967, they were always referred to as Arabs, and historically, they were always administered as a part of either Egypt, Syria or Trans-Jordan.
If they are dug deep enough underground, they can indeed be made rocketproof. And why is that modded down - that is a real concern in Israel, particularly if these cables are going to run in Sderod, or other areas bordering Gaza.
While they are at it, they should also convert completely to IPv6, so that they can do all their pioneering work on the new security that will be needed in IPv6 networks
So when are you fuckers and the Palestinians finally going to get around to totally wiping each other out? A world without either of you would be a world much better off.
Easy to say if you live in the US or Canada. Not so easy if you live in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.
Men in the game are blind to what men looking on see clearly. That doesn't mean we should encourage or even accept that blindness.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
These days? It's always been that way, since before Israel was "recognized" by the U.N. Most of the Jews in Palestine in 1948 were either immigrants or first generation children of immigrants. Israel was "created" by taking land from the majority native population, and giving it to a minority via land theft and conquest.
Funny how you "ancestral homeland" guys leave that part out of the storyline. If the Palestinians had to GTFO because the Jews lived there 2,000 years ago, then the Israelis can GTFO for the descendants of the Canaanites from 3,000 years ago.
Who would be, you know, Palestinians.
Unless the UN imposes sanctions on bulldozer imports to the West Bank.
Wow, great way to read with blinders on. Try reading the whole article, readers on this site should know better than to judge from the summary.
Nice how you highlighted so selectively, trying to make Israel the aggressor. So it doesn't matter that the Arab countries were provoking Israel, just that Israel struck back. It doesn't matter to you that the Arab countries had over 200,000 troops massed on the Israeli borders (from the same article you skimmed) and had announced plans and intent to attack Israel. No, Israel attacked Egypt before Egypt could follow through, so it's all Israel's fault. Why should Israel be allowed to attack Jordan and Syria, just because they were shelling Israeli villages? I see, it's ridiculous that Israel should be allowed to retaliate. A naval blockade, typically considered an act of war- oh, it's against Israel, carry on then.
Dude, your argument is a dud. Seriously, open up your mind, take a step back and look at the big picture here. There is no argument that actually takes facts into account and still claims Israel started that war.
That was then, this is now.
After the Second World War and the Nurenberg trials, a bunch of international lawyers (many of them Jewish, I'm proud to say) got together and wrote a set of international laws and agreements, including the Geneva conventions, which most countries signed, which would prevent acquisition of territory by force from ever happening again.
Just curious- does it specify any difference if the target of the attack manages to take land from the attacker (as in the case discussed here) vs the attacker taking land from the target? IANAL.
So now it violates international law. And Israel is violating international law.
What Israel's right-wing government is doing also violates basic intelligence. If you want your country to be safe and secure, don't make enemies of everybody in the world.
I think Israel's Arab neighbors disliked it well before Israel claimed this territory, and would continue to do so even if it was returned. Their dislike seems to stem from Israel existing in the first place. Israel seems to have fairly normal relations with the majority of countries in the world. Also, safety and security rarely result from just doing what's needed to be liked.
You saw how well that worked for Germany.
Hardly an apt comparison. Israel did not attack its neighbors in an attempt to take them over, resulting in two world wars. Israel was attacked by its neighbors, repulsed their attack, and took what they felt they needed to be secure. If their goal was acquisition of land it seems they could have taken much more.
If you read that passage from Wikipedia that I posted, you'll see that Israel wasn't attacked by its neighbors. Israel attacked.
I'm not a lawyer. Theodor Meron is. He was the Israeli government's top international lawyer in 1967. The prime minister of Israel asked him whether it would be legal to occupy the territories, and he said it would be illegal. It doesn't get any clearer than that.
I studied German (and European) history. Zionism had its origins in 19th century German nationalism. The same movement that led to Theodor Herzel produced Fichte, Jahn, Herder and ultimately the Nazis. The nationalist movements all wanted to go back to their "historical" borders when their nation was supposedly an empire. That's what the Nazis did and that's what the Israeli Likud is doing now.
That's the choice the Israelis made: Do they want to follow the law, and live in peace with their neighbors, or do they want to ressurect 19th century German nationalism and have wars of conquest, which are now illegal? You see their decision.
If you compare the accounts of Jews being driven out of their lands, and Palestinians being driven out of their lands, the similarity is remarkable. People in the Jewish peace movement say, "That sounds just like what my grandfather described."
I can't explain it to you. Here's somebody who can. This is from the Jewish Daily Forward. http://www.evcomics.com/2011/11/20/never-miss-an-opportunity/
Facts are facts, but your interpretation is crap. Nothing in the article you linked to supports the claim that money from the U.S. is to be used towards any or all of the optical infrastructure. And while they do get money from the U.S. (most of which is spent in the U.S., supporting American workers- you're not against that, are you?) nothing in the article you linked to supports the claim that the aid pays for their entire military industrial complex. In fact, since the Israeli military budget has been between $15-50 billion in the last few years, and your article mentions a $3 billion request, it seems like a relatively small portion- certainly far short of 'entire' as you claimed. Also you should note that a large percentage of the aid is loans, not grants, which means that Israel pays back the money- something most countries receiving aid don't do.
But you keep grinning, and don't let those pesky facts interfere.
I thought this was about Israel's gigabit internet upgrade, not about Israel vs. Palestine. Does every mention of Israel in the news have to trigger this debate?
Great, another "it all started when Israel struck back" post. Prior to Israel "starting" the war, Syria was firing artillery at Israeli villages, and Egypt had started a naval blockade of an Israeli port- both generally considered an act of war. Really, both of these are listed in the section you pasted above. The article is poorly worded in that section- even casual inspection should reveal that. Further down in that article, if you had read below the summary, you would have noticed that Egypt, Syria, and Jordan had over 200,000 troops on the Israeli border, and they weren't there for a bbq. Leaders of those countries had also stated that they wanted to destroy Israel.
Really, I don't know how you can look at the history of this event and claim that Israel started it, unless you're one of those who considers Israel's mere existence provocation enough to attack.
If you own a chunk of farmland, and your government gets into an argument with a neighboring government and loses control of it, that doesn't mean you don't still own your farm. And if the new government wants to let a bunch of ethnically-correct "settlers" go "settle" on your land, they're still thieves.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
history and archaeology proves that the Aryans are native to Germany too but that doesn't legitimize ethnic cleansing in the present
From your link:
Palestinians rejected the proposal for a Jewish state not because it was for Jews, but because it was giving 2/3 of the land to 1/3 of the population. Who were almost entirely immigrants from Europe. It would have been like the Cuban population of Florida claiming 2/3 of the state in 1970. "Accepting a Jewish state" means accepting land theft and ethnic cleansing.
Translation: the "the other guy started it" defense works, but only as long as it's in Israel's favor. As soon as it works against Israel, it no longer applies. Funny how often that happens...like the "ancestral homeland" argument that applies to the Hebrews but not the Canaanites. Or the "it's been too long" argument, that applies to Palestinians robbed of their land in 1948 (much less 1967), but not when it was Israel going after Swiss Banks for Jewish possessions stolen in the 1930's.
Huh, almost like you're a bunch of political hacks, or something....
Your nonsense. All of your examples are from before the end of WWII, before the fourth Geneva conventions, and some territory disputes from long gone empires (Prussia and Ottomans). Not one apples-to-apples modern comparison of Israel's 1967 land grab, following a war it started with a sneak attack on Egypt.
And if this were the year 1912 (64 years past the concession), you'd have a great point. But we're a hundred years past that point, so you don't. Whereas there are still Palestinians who have keys to the houses they were forced out of in 1948 (64 years ago), much less 1967 (45 years).
Demonize Israel? Bitch please. Everyone knows that America was built on apartheid and land theft of the native population. Some of us even know that this happened over a hundred years ago - as opposed to Israel's apartheid and land theft, which is happening right now.
Drivel. The two recent rocket barrages - first in 2008 and the second in 2012 - followed a cease fire violated by Israel and the Israeli assassination of the Hamas official who was....busy trying to negotiate a cease fire.
Snort. You say that like you're from some alternate universe where Israel isn't and always has been the primary, secondary, and tertiary aggressor:
Meanwhile,, you have a greater chance of being killed by a bus in Israel than by a qassam rocket. No, not just car accidents, but car accidents involving buses. Even the IDF admits that "Qassams are more a psychological than physical threat".
Israel has no interest in peace, it has an interest in solidifying it's control over it's acquired territory and waiting out the clock. If they delay and deny p
3 million in Vietnam. Another million in Iraq. Any more dumb questions?
Need remedial current events much? Bush and then Obama, along with enthusiastic help from Congress and the courts, have been wiping their ass with the Constitution for some time now. Warrantless wiretapping? Indefinite detention? Starting a war in Libya without Congressional authorization?
Obvious deflection is obvious. And lazy. No counter-argument, no citation showing the Guardian's article to be wrong...just ad homs. Because that's all you've got.
And the Likud charter lays claim to all of the West Bank, which Israel has no right to.
And if you listen to right wing Israelis, you'll find references to complete "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians from their remaining lands.
Irrelevant. That there wasn't a Palestinian nation does nothing whatsoever to change the fact that there was a Palestinian area or Palestinian people. You wouldn't argue there wasn't a Greek area or Greek people when it was ruled by the Romans or the Turks, would you? Of course not, because then you'd be a political hack.
3 million in Vietnam. Another million in Iraq. Any more dumb questions?
Citation please. Were you unable to read the citation I gave? It is you that has the assertion that my reference already disproved, and have not supplied anything to counter that. So at this point I think that you are being obtuse/dumb.
Note that Vietnam was over forty years ago, was entirely justified against North Vietnamese-Russian-Chinese aggression against a democratic (but yes, very imperfect) state that was conducting self defense as permitted under the relevant United Nations resolution and requested assistance from the US. But by all means try and stand up for totalitarian communism that has been thoroughly discredited, especially since the archives of many states have been opened as the situation was even worse than first thought. Nice one. Not only do you ignore cited facts with unsupported bullshit assertions you then try and pull in an irrelevant war against a totalitarian regime. Also feel free to ignore the fact that over the last several years Vietnam has invited the US military back as a counter-balance against China - but stay stuck in the past like a dunce who is unable to see where the past is relevant to the discussion at hand, and where it is not. Even a muppet could construct a better argument - provided they applied the smallest modicum of logic before posting.
Sorry for being so forceful. I'm just fed up with ignoramuses like yourself not even bothering to check the facts - which means they keep spouting total bullshit figures, and trying to misdirect with irrelevant topics. Get some citations and then we can talk, yeah?
In all truth, we had rockets landing in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem in November without withdrawing from anything.
But at least have some fairness and consistency.
WRT Israel??? On /. ?!! Man, that's got to be a violation of TOS.
And here India is thinking that spending $4 billion or so will get it a nationwide fibre network. No wonder what has been done so far doesn't actually work properly. I feel sorry for the people that are going to have to be using this for lack of another choice.
I only bring it up because I've been working with Israelis on my unrelated-to-the-government fibre network in India - and I still can't fathom the amount of money it's going to cost me over the next decade or so to do that, but I'm sure it'll be more than $4 billion - you know - if I want it done properly.
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)