By John Ballard
?'We were looking for a nice, peaceful place near Jerusalem' by Rachel Shabi.
Via a Lisa Goldman tweet, this young journalist has been nominated for a prize. After reading this from last year I can see why. This is the most coherent explanation of the settlements I have read. No way to simplify the issue in a few words. You must read the whole piece.
My search for affordable, secular housing leads me, eventually, to Almon. It's a short drive east of Jerusalem, and I've had to cross an Israeli checkpoint, but it's specifically for settler use � a nod, the "right" appearance and Israeli number plates get me waved through. Outside, a billboard advertises the number of the contractor, who confirms that 70 units are under construction at the site. The four-bedroom houses vary in size from 130 to 140 square metres, with gardens of up to 70 square metres, and they are shifting fast. The settlement is not officially exempt from the construction freeze, but Palestinian constructors are currently working on the site and homes could be ready within a year. The starting price is �175,150.
[...] For a new property in Almon, I'd get almost �11,600 as a special allowance. But the allowances rise sharply for Israeli couples who pick homes in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Betar Illit, near Jerusalem, or in Ariel, around 25km east of the Green Line, or in Kiryat Arba, a hardline settlement near Hebron. For each of those, I'd get a total allowance of around �40,200. When I ask, the housing ministry says that state subsidies vary according to the "security threat assessments" pertinent to each area, adding that properties on the Israeli border with Lebanon qualify for similar amounts.
Israeli settlements expert Dror Etkes describes how, at times, mortgages given in the West Bank have "included loans which, after a period of time, turned into grants". The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reports that, between 1997 and 2002, the state put 419m shekels (around �72m) into state-subsidised "association mortgages" for 1,800 apartments, most of them in the West Bank. The state comptroller, investigating these payments, found they were not included in the housing ministry's budget. Responding to queries over this funding, the ministry said it was not intended for "the entire public" and that announcing it would have caused "unnecessary confusion".
?A Look at the Potential Leader of Free Libya's Doctoral Thesis
Blake Hounshell found this one. There are no crystal balls in international relations but academic research may be the next best thing. Predicting the next "potential leader" of "Free Libya" presumes there will BE another Libya, that it will be FREE and that this guy MAY be among the leaders. All that said, peering into his academic past might be instructive.
The question is, does Jibril view American support now as steadfast? Or, given his thesis, does he see U.S. military assistance as a whim of American foreign policy, liable to turn on a dime?
Gimme a break. Surely those questions are rhetorical.
?In Yemen, Sit-In Against the Government Yields Business Opportunities
NY Times snapshot from Yemen. Reminds me of roadside stands peddling soft drinks and souvenirs any time large crowds convene. Demonstrations have been going on over a month.
A new branch of a well-known family-owned restaurant chain sells 3,000 plates of eggs and beans at breakfast and another 3,000 at dinner. The manager, Abdel Kareem al-Shaibani, says the restaurant is busier than his brother�s popular branch three miles down the road. Though he said he sided with neither the protesters nor Mr. Saleh, he just cut the price of a plate of beans to 45 cents from 70 cents. �A service to the youth,� he called it. �I feel like I�m helping the future.�
?Is the Muslim Brotherhood internally divided?
Thoughtful article from Al Ahram online. All the chatter about the Muslim Brotherhood reminds me of how Southerners once spoke about the NAACP. This is a very old organization with roots that go way past the recent era of terrorism. Over time more radical elements have spun off, including Hamas and its splinter groups. My impression of MB is that it is to Islam what Knights of Columbus is to Roman Catholics. Important, maybe, but no more threatening than a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court. And Hamas is more like the KKK (or some other sub-Christian spinoff of the faith).
I'm waiting for someone to produce a coherent (but hopefully not too dense) history of how various Muslim religious movements have been expressed in political terms. Just last night looking at Vali Nasr's The Shiite Revival I came across a section describing in detail how the valid spiritual aspects of the faith were coopted and secularized for political purposes following the overthrow of the Shah in Iran. The same is true in spades for the Sunnis. Americans should readily recognize the phenomenon from our own home grown perversions of Christianity. Contrasts between faith and politics are near schizophrenic, and yet the majority of practicing Christians are blind to the contradictions. And Islamophobia, fueled in no small part by Christian Zionists, is at the moment running amuck.
?Study: Prepare for the Arrival of Chinese Tourists
Wall Street Journal item. Short reminder that Asian tourists, particularly following the Japanese disaster, are more apt to be from China than Japan.
Developing the ability to accommodate Chinese travelers may have recently become even more urgent, at least in certain markets. Japanese tourists, who powered hotels in the Asia-Pacific and Hawaii over the past few decades, are expected to decrease or halt travel in the aftermath of the natural and nuclear disasters that have occurred in their homeland. As a recent Bloomberg report points out, the catastrophes will likely accelerate a travel decline that began several years ago and boost a reliance on China.
Japanese travelers spent $25 billion in 2009, compared to $44 billion from Chinese tourists, according to figures from the United Nations World Tourism Organization cited by Bloomberg.
?Al-Qaida leaders welcome Arab uprisings, says cleric
Yeah. Right.
This reminds me of someone's nutty claim (Krauthammer? I don't recall.) that the Arab uprisings are the fulfillment of the George Bush vision of democracy for the region.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Good illustration of that saying When life hands you a lemon, them make it into lemonade.
Anyone think George Galloway might defect to #Libya
to even up the score after Moussa Koussa move?
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