Writing The Wrongs: Chinese to build railway to Eilat

Monday, October 24, 2011

Chinese to build railway to Eilat

Israeli, Chinese governments to sign memorandum of understanding for construction of 180-kilometer railway from Nahal Tzin to southern resort city

Ofer Petersburg
Israel Business

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz met with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing recently, and the two agreed to cooperate in the construction of a railway to the southern Israeli city of Eilat.

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The Israeli and Chinese governments will sign a memorandum of understanding for the construction of a 180-kilometer (112-mile) railway from Nahal Tzin to Eilat. Before leaving on his trip, Minister Katz discussed the advancement of transportation projects with China with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The minister plans to further the Eilat railway law.

Charlie Solomon, the ministry's deputy director-general for economics and planning, who was part of the minister's delegation, has been tasked with drafting a cooperation document with his Chinese counterpart.

According to Katz, his visit to China led to a breakthrough in the advancement of transportation initiatives with the transportation superpower. Israel plans to invest NIS 100 billion in roads and trains in the next five years, and the Chinese are to have a significant part in the projects.

Many Chinese companies specializing in infrastructure will send representatives to Israel to conduct the work. It has been reported recently that the Chinese will also set up the Haifa-Carmiel railway, after the successful construction of the Carmel Tunnels.

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Why reconstruct Gaza without making demands

Ted Belman

The US and EU are putting up $2.3 Billion to redevelop Gaza.

Before advancing any money, why don’t they insist

- that Shalit be release without convicted terrorists being released by Israel in exchange,

- that the US be put in charge of the southern border to ensure that Hamas isn’t rearmed?

- that their three preconditions be accepted by Hamas, i.e. agree to all former agreements,recognize Israel and renounce terror

- that Hamas amend their Charter

- That Hamas disconnect from Iran

The answer is that they don’t want to.

IDF: Civilian Deaths in Gaza Less than 25% of Total

A maximum of 25% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli operation are innocent civilians, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), Col. Moshe Levi, said Wednesday. According to Palestinian medical officials, Israel has killed some 1,000 Palestinians and more than half of them are civilians. Levi said the CLA had compiled a list with the names of 900 Palestinians killed during the fighting. He said that 150 names were of women, children and elderly, and that the maximum number of civilians killed so far was 250.
Levi also dismissed claims that 43 Palestinians were killed in an IDF attack on a Hamas terror cell that was firing mortars at Israeli forces from within an UNRWA school in Jabalya. Levi said 21 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including a number of Hamas operatives. (Jerusalem Post)

Iranian reformist daily:Hamas hiding forces in nurseries and hospitals

An Iranian reformist daily newspaper has criticized Hamas "for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals." This is reported in today's Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam. The Palestinian daily adds that in response the Iranian government has closed the newspaper.

The following is the story in today's Al-Ayyam:

Headline: "Iran closes a reformist newspaper, for publishing a report criticizing Hamas"

"The Iranian news agency "Irna" reported yesterday, that the Iranian Culture Ministry has closed the reformist daily newspaper "Karjo Zaran", because it published a report that included criticism of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
On December 30 the paper published a statement of a reformist student organization, that has criticized Hamas for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals. The statement was published whilst the Iranian government expresses a unified stands against Israel, and Tehran is overwhelmed by demonstrations against Israel."

[Al-Ayyam, Jan. 1, 2009]
Thanks PMW

Iran-backed Hamas Rocket, Mortar Attacks and Nuclear Developments

9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]
3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]
6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]
543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]
28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire ended, Iran-backed Palestinian groups in Gaza fired rockets and mortars that killed an Israeli-Arab construction worker and a mother of four who was seeking shelter in a bus station as a rocket warning siren sounded. [5]
1,000+ people in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001, including Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire, 44 Israelis have been injured and 200 have been treated for shock. [6]
Thanks Israel Project

It began with this...

The British Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the
achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.2

Signed,
Arthur James Balfour
[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]

Syria is an Occupier-Are You Listening World?

Syria Occupies Lebanon. Again. - Bret Stephens (Wall Street Journal)

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. In meticulous detail - supplemented by photographs and satellite images - the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated.

Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil - in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms which amount to an area of about 12 square miles.

It would be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject.