Israel's illegal appropriation and occupation of Palestinian land will continue:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signaled a right turn Sunday, vowing to build inside the West Bank settlement blocs, even as bulldozers began mowing down Gaza's settlements.
"There will be building in the settlement blocs," Sharon said. "Each government since 1967 – right, left and national unity – has seen strategic importance in specific areas [beyond the Green Line]. I will build."
Sharon mentioned specifically that "Ma'ale Adumim will continue to grow and be connected to Jerusalem," and that Ariel and its satellites would be a part of Israel forever. [...] "[T]there will be no second disengagement."
Indeed, he is already building. Illegality aside, as well as the fact that the construction of settlements and the associated system of checkpoints and building of the Israeli land-grab apartheid "security" wall are decimating Palestinian civil society and destroying future prospects for a unified Palestinian state, further building is in opposition to the so-called "road map" to peace:
Sharon was obviously aware that the road map called for a freeze of all settlement construction, and was cognizant that this construction could put Israel on a collision course with both the US and Europe.
But might continued building disrupt U.S.-taxpayer financing of Israel? Sharon has no worries:
Relating to reports Sunday that evacuees from Netzarim will be temporarily housed in Ariel, Sharon said he was not worried that this would hurt Israel's request for some $2.2 billion in aid from the US for disengagement-related development in the Negev and Galilee. "We don't move anyone, people can go wherever they want," Sharon said, adding that Israel had an interest in settling the Negev and Galilee.
Indeed, why should he worry? After all, notwithstanding the fact that the US Arms Export Control Act (AECA) strictly forbids the government from giving military assistance to any country that violates internationally recognized human rights, much of the aid to Israel goes towards buying the arms and munitions, helicopters, and bulldozers needed to conduct the brutal miltary occupation of Palestine, and so ends right back in U.S. corporate pockets:
Matti Peled, former Israeli major general and Knesset member, told Zunes that he and most Israeli generals believe this aid is "little more than an American subsidy to U.S. arms manufacturers," considering that the majority of military aid to Israel is used to buy weapons from the U.S.
Moreover, funding Israel's arms buildup escalates Israeli-Arab tensions, and so profits U.S. war corporations in another way:
According to Zunes, "the Israelis announced back in 1991 that they supported the idea of a freeze in Middle East arms transfers, yet it was the United States that rejected it."
In the fall of 1993-when many had high hopes for peace-78 senators wrote to former President Bill Clinton insisting that aid to Israel remain "at current levels." Their "only reason" was the "massive procurement of sophisticated arms by Arab states." The letter neglected to mention that 80 percent of those arms to Arab countries came from the U.S.
Israel probably couldn't stop getting U.S. aid even if it wanted to.
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