Strawberries: revisited

[webfusion]

From the Baltimore SUN -- by John Murphy
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.gaza04sep04,0,5382196.story

The Palestinian government project, which employed more than 4,000 Gazans, was expected to inject $20 million into the Gaza Strip's battered economy.
But a year later, the greenhouses of Gaza are empty, the workers have been laid off and Abu Ramadan's dreams have been put on hold.

"Palestinians had high hopes for the former (jewish) settlement of Morag, where Palestinian leaders laid a cornerstone last year for a $100 million public housing project bankrolled by the United Arab Emirates. But construction on the project that will house 25,000 Palestinians has yet to start."

Hmmmm, no jews in a housing project in gaza.
Very unfair?

 

[The Fool]

From the Baltimore SUN -- by John Murphy
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.gaza04sep04,0,5382196.story

The Palestinian government project, which employed more than 4,000 Gazans, was expected to inject $20 million into the Gaza Strip's battered economy.
But a year later, the greenhouses of Gaza are empty, the workers have been laid off and Abu Ramadan's dreams have been put on hold.

"Palestinians had high hopes for the former (jewish) settlement of Morag, where Palestinian leaders laid a cornerstone last year for a $100 million public housing project bankrolled by the United Arab Emirates. But construction on the project that will house 25,000 Palestinians has yet to start."

Hmmmm, no jews in a housing project in gaza.
Very unfair?

Have you applied for a place and been rejected? Anyway....If you compile a list of Israelis who want to live in gaza and I'll see what I can arrange...although I would have thought the only people who would want to live under the current conditions in Gaza are people who don't have a lot of other options.


eta: please remind them they can't bring Israel with them...they would actually be living in gaza, not a little isolated bit of israel.....it would be crappy water limited power,food and medicine shortages.... IDF bombs and shells....all that sort of stuff.

 

[steverino]

Have you applied for a place and been rejected? Anyway....If you compile a list of Israelis who want to live in gaza and I'll see what I can arrange...although I would have thought the only people who would want to live under the current conditions in Gaza are people who don't have a lot of other options.


eta: please remind them they can't bring Israel with them...they would actually be living in gaza, not a little isolated bit of israel.....it would be crappy water limited power,food and medicine shortages.... IDF bombs and shells....all that sort of stuff.

Don't worry. The day Israel leaves Gaza alone, Iran will see to it that Gaza will have its water, power, and medicine. Iran will make an offer the Gazzans can't refuse.

 

[Mycroft]

Don't worry. The day Israel leaves Gaza alone, Iran will see to it that Gaza will have its water, power, and medicine. Iran will make an offer the Gazzans can't refuse.

Well, Iran might make sure they have plenty of guns and ammunition. Things like water, power, medicine, food, economic development, and hope will be systematically denied to Palestinians by the Arab world. It gets in the way of manufacturing genocidal anger.

 

[webfusion]

T-F asks:

Have you applied for a place and been rejected?

Yes.

Under Article 3, the sale of land to any alien (ie., someone who is non-Arab) is a security offense, punishable by death.
According to PA Attorney General Khaled Al-Qidreh, 172 people have been sentenced to death under this law (Palestine Report, 6 June 1997)


I certainly would like to have you "arrange" for jews to live in gaza again. They were doing quite well there, ya know. A bit of paradise on earth, actually. Sweet Strawberries and everything.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Don't worry. The day Israel leaves Gaza alone, Iran will see to it that Gaza will have its water, power, and medicine. Iran will make an offer the Gazzans can't refuse.

The UAE already has.

a $100 million public housing project bankrolled by the United Arab Emirates. But construction on the project that will house 25,000 Palestinians has yet to start."

Funny how those welfare recipients, who had for two generations lived on the Arab League's dole (gross generalization, of course) as administered by Arafat and a few select others, can't seem to get off their bums and get started on a pre financed housing project.

Is the trouble their diligence, or are the Isrealis blocking the import and export of materials? Curious. Or, are they as screwed up as the typical municipality, and bickering over zoning and land title?

DR

 

[The Fool]

T-F asks:

Yes.

Under Article 3, the sale of land to any alien (ie., someone who is non-Arab) is a security offense, punishable by death.
According to PA Attorney General Khaled Al-Qidreh, 172 people have been sentenced to death under this law (Palestine Report, 6 June 1997)


I certainly would like to have you "arrange" for jews to live in gaza again. They were doing quite well there, ya know. A bit of paradise on earth, actually. Sweet Strawberries and everything.

Yes they were doing quite well. Remind me again, why did they pick Gaza to settle in?

 

[Darth Rotor]

Yes they were doing quite well. Remind me again, why did they pick Gaza to settle in?

Natural resources include arable land (about a third of the strip is irrigated), and recently discovered natural gas. Environmental issues include desertification; salination of fresh water; sewage treatment; water-borne disease; soil degradation; and depletion and contamination of underground water resources. It is considered to be one of the fifteen territories that comprise the so-called "Cradle of Humanity."

It currently holds the oldest known remains of a manmade bonfire and some of the world's oldest dated human skeletons.

If an Arab state would fund a desalinzation plant off part of the Gaza coast, as are typically seen in the Persian Gulf, Gaza could become quite a bit more productive. However, its high population density per km^2 and the tendency for welfare states to urbanize (Gaza is by any reasonable definition a welfare state) makes its long term ecnomic health dependent on the recently discovered natural gas resources, as well as an intelligent approach to population growth. That last is bloody unlikely any time soon.

DR

 

[BPSCG]

Yes they were doing quite well. Remind me again, why did they pick Gaza to settle in?

Um, I think it was because they lived in what is now known as Israel, until 1947, when they were encouraged to leave by the armies of Egypt, Syria, et. al., so they wouldn't get in the way of some necessary Jew-killing, after which, it was promised, they could return and live off the fat of the land.

I could be wrong, though.

 

[webfusion]

...why did they pick Gaza to settle in?

BPSCG misunderstood the question.

T-F was asking here about the jews who moved there after the Gaza Strip was wrenched from Egyptian control in the Six Day War.

The coastal strip is a natural extension of the dunes that run south from Ashkelon, and the jews decided it was a nice stretch of beachfront property.

Like Miami.

Why do jews pick Miami to settle in? Or Costa del Sol. Or San Diego. Or Bondi.
How is there any difference? Explain the logic.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Why do jews pick Miami to settle in? Or Costa del Sol. Or San Diego. Or Bondi.

Havana was no longer available after January 2, 1959. Castro has been credited with the explosive growth of Miami by some.

I missed a chance to vacation in Eilat about 15 years ago, schedule change. I hear it is quite nice.

DR

 

[BPSCG]

BPSCG misunderstood the question.

Like I said, I could be wrong.

The coastal strip is a natural extension of the dunes that run south from Ashkelon, and the jews decided it was a nice stretch of beachfront property.

Like Miami.

Why do jews pick Miami to settle in? Or Costa del Sol. Or San Diego. Or Bondi.
How is there any difference? Explain the logic.

So why don't the Palestinians build a bunch of beachfront luxury hotels? That way, instead of trying to kill Jews, they could make the Jews pay them money for the privilege of coming to visit. Use Monaco as a model. Build casinos so you can entice the Jews to come and gamble away their life savings.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Like I said, I could be wrong.

So why don't the Palestinians build a bunch of beachfront luxury hotels? That way, instead of trying to kill Jews, they could make the Jews pay them money for the privilege of coming to visit. Use Monaco as a model. Build casinos so you can entice the Jews to come and gamble away their life savings.

They could even apply for the licenses under a similar rubric to the Indian Reservations . . . oh, wait, wrong country, wrong 'indigenous population.'

Never mind.

Now that Lebanon's role as the Monte Carlo of the Eastern Med is again in jeopardy, Gaza might be positioned to fill the breech. All they need to do is get a better PR campaign going to sell their tourist destination better than Beirut.

"Come to Gaza, a Hezbollah Free tourist destination!" No Shi'ite!

DR

 

[webfusion]

Darth Rotor requests some answers:

Is the trouble their diligence, or are the Israelis blocking the import and export of materials? Curious. Or, are they (the palestinians) as screwed up as the typical municipality, and bickering over zoning and land title?

It's a little bit of everything.

For one thing, the import of materials is restricted, since the main crossing point for cargo trucks (KARNI) is not operating fully. The Israelis have good reason for this, as has been made clear by the discovery recently of a massive tunnel which was designed for a terror attack upon the terminal. The IDF had been trying to discover this tunnel for a few months, since they had intelligence warnings about it, but only after actually going into gaza during Operation Summer Rains (which continues today) were they able to find it.

The other main reason the project is at a standstill ------ money.
Although the UAE 'paid for' the construction, there is a problem with the distribution and transfer of funds. With HAMAS in charge of things, banking institutions face sanctions by the USA if they release cash to the non-grata government of the palestinians.

As for the land title:
Who 'owns' gaza?

 

[webfusion]

So why don't the Palestinians build a bunch of beachfront luxury hotels? That way, instead of trying to kill Jews, they could make the Jews pay them money for the privilege of coming to visit. Use Monaco as a model. Build casinos so you can entice the Jews to come and gamble away their life savings.

With HAMAS in charge, that is not possible.
As a fundamentailist regime, they prohibit mixed beaches (male and female together), they prohibit alcohol, and gambling, and pretty much any public displays of open merriment.

As for the idea of palestinian casinos -- been there, done that.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=12699

 

[webfusion]

Darth Rotor, the gazans even have a fantastic airport !

http://www.arafat-airport.ps/

 

[Darth Rotor]

Darth Rotor, the gazans even have a fantastic airport !

http://www.arafat-airport.ps/

Gas for 18 cents (US) per liter? That's cheap for Jet A.

DR

 

[Darth Rotor]

Darth Rotor requests some answers:

It's a little bit of everything.


As for the land title:
Who 'owns' gaza?

It doesn't help that Gaza has no seaport, and Israel has no incentive to support a port that will compete with Haifa for commercial traffic.

The idiot Soros, whose article in Times of India concerns some of these issues, once again gets it wrong:

The people of Palestine yearn for peace and relief from suffering. The political — distinct from the military — wing of Hamas must be responsive to their desires.

What a fool. The military is the tool of, and a subset, of the political. To pretend otherwise is to see the world as flat.

It is not too late for Israel to encourage and deal with an Abbas-led Palestinian unity government as the first step towards a better balanced approach. What is missing is a US government that is not blinded by the war-on-terror concept.

I don't disagree with that entirely, nor do I disagree with a previous point from his article: that all terrorist groups can be lumped into a cohesive whole, and constructed into a "nation of terror" upon whom is waged a war.

Each terror/underground/revolutionary/reactionary group has its own raison d'etre, its own context, and thus its own strengths and weaknesses. As such, each must be handled separately, if "the war on terror" is to be successfully waged.

DR

 

[webfusion]

D-R:

It doesn't help that Gaza has no seaport, and Israel has no incentive to support a port that will compete with Haifa for commercial traffic.

Actually, with Ashdod.

Also, Israel's governments over the years have consistently supported the building of a modern deepwater port for Gaza.
(See: Shimon Peres)

 

[Darth Rotor]

D-R:

Actually, with Ashdod.

Also, Israel's governments over the years have consistently supported the building of a modern deepwater port for Gaza.
(See: Shimon Peres)

Thanks for that.

Peres isn't current. I can see where a port in Gaza would be a good way to empower the Palestinians, but is there support in the Knesset for such a thing?

DR