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Saturday, December 7, 2013

The Jewish Utopia with Disgruntled Uncooperative Arabs Who Won't Pay Their Electricity Bill Let Alone Stop Terrorizing

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      

1895 was the year that Theodor Hertzl started writing his book,  Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State).  It was published in February 1896 outlining a perfect state for all.  He wrote another called Altnewland (The Old New Land) in 1902 which was a Utopian novel about his planned Jewish Homeland.  From the very beginning of the Ashkenazi Jews' return to something they had prayed for in the 2,000 years of being away, they planned and organized it carefully.  By the end of WWI, they saw their dream coming to fruition with the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917 by the British foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour.

In the planning stage of Israel, David Ben-Gurion told Palestinian nationalist, Musa Alami in 1934, the Jewish leaders consciously sought to avoid the situation that prevailed in South Africa of Apartheid  where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers.  "If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland" he had commented.  They had planned to make their Jewish Homeland a Utopia.

For the Arabs living in Israel who did not leave in the beginning when their Arab leaders told them to, they are full citizens with voting rights and representation in the government, unlike the Black South Africans who couldn't vote nor become a citizen before Mandela.  They now number 1.7 million people.

The territories of Judea and Samaria have a different situation. Lost to Israel in 1947-48's War of Independence,  they were won back in 1967 after Israel was attacked by the whole Arab surrounding nations in a defensive war because they had been taken over by Jordan who entered the 67 war and lost.  Because of violent insurrections there, they have forced Israel to impose restrictions to maintain security.  Their own behaviors brought this on.  These Palestinians insist that Israel has no right to even exist!  Israel cannot give these Arabs full citizenship because then they would have to annex Judea and Samaria.

They have been allowed to work in Israel and receive similar pay and benefits just like the Jewish workers.    They can attend schools and universities.  They have been given opportunities to run many of their own affairs.  The PA has the ruling power there.

What would happen to me if I didn't pay my electricity bill?  I would probably get a phone call from the company asking when I was sending in my payment.  Maybe I would even get an email about it.  After missing a couple of payments, my electricity would be cut off.

The Arabs living in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem have not paid their electricity bill.  Their company is owned by Israel.  Yes, Israel supplies them their electricity, and they have been in arrears for a long time, now.  The PA, who's responsibility it is to send the payment to Israel, owe 1.1 billion shekels. That's a little over  $28,433,312.00 in dollars.  Yet, they demanded that criminals be let out of Israeli prison before they would continue to talk about making peace, and to each of them they gave $50,000 as bonus money for work well done as being terrorists and killing Jews.  So far, 104 prisoners are to be set free.  "Issa Abd Rabbo, got a $60,000 grant."  He had been in the longest."  No wonder they can't pay their electricity bill.  They buy the makings for bombs and pay off the terrorists.  Where did the PA get the money?  It was from the USA's $148 million dollar USA Aid money."Although the U.S. funnels about $400 million per year in aid to the authority, none of the money, by law, is supposed to go to terrorists or former terrorists.."  It did.  

While their peacemakers have made no peace with Israel and Kerry, they are asking Israel to cancel half of its debt to the Israel Electric Corporation.  PA finance Minister Shukri Bishara has asked that 550 million shekels of the debt from Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem be forgiven with repayment of the other 550 million shekels spread over a period of 20 years.  Of course, they're busy fighting against Israel.

Israel took this as insulting.  It has put their own Israel Electric Corporation  in a financially troubling condition and they were depending on the PA's bill to be paid up.  The PA really have no industry and have been depending on international aid which has declined.

The PA are in arrears because the PA failed to collect money from their customers.  Many users steal electricity through illegal hookups, so Palestinians are not used to paying for electricity.  Salam Fayyad, former PA Prime Minister, agreed to forgive debts owed by customers who began paying for their power.

A year ago, Israel deducted the debts of Jerusalem District  Electric Company in East Jerusalem (JDECO) from tax receipts collected by Israel on the PA's behalf, but it reversed the decision after several weeks because the   (JDECO) is a private company.  Back in November 2012, the proposal was brought up to confiscate money owed by the Palestinians to the IEC to help the utility company supplying the power, but it must have been dropped, because the bill is still in arrears.

Judea and Samaria's Gross national Product per capita was slightly over $400 in the early 1970's.  it rose to more than $2,000 a year in 1987.  In Gaza, it rose from $4280 to more than $1,480.  Before the Gulf War, more than 100,000 Arabs in Judea and Samaria and Gaza worked in Israel.

Today of course, that is not happening due to their state of being at war with Israel and each other with Fatah leading in Judea-Samaria and Hamas in Gaza.  Arab workers had been following the PLO-instigated strikes making security an issue in the beginning.  Many Arabs lost their jobs due to their lining up as the enemy.  Businesses were able to get their own Jewish workers to replace them.  War does displace workers.  Palestinian workers in Kuwait became unemployed due to war and then couldn't send money home like they had been.  Kuwait and other Arab states then withdrew funding for Palestinian Arabs in the territories of Judea-Samaria.  The Intifada caused economic deprivation which all caused a severe recession.

By 1991, Israel tried to facilitate investment and capital development including a $700 million economic plan to help rebuild the economics of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.  It depended on international funding.  Israel aimed at creating a "technocratic management class" that could work with the industrialized word and their counterparts in Israel with in the end having capitalists talking to Israel from Gaza, but there was no interest from the Arabs as their government went to hard terrorism instead of working together with Israel.   Ideas Israel tried in order to make further improvements in living conditions for residents of the territories were always met with anger and a rebuffing people.

Agricultural produce from Judea and Samaria was a major source of income for the Arabs.  Goods moved across the bridges to Jordan and beyond into the rest of the Arab world.  They had an agreement from 1985 to have produce air-shipped to Europe through Israel's marketing agent, Agrexco.

It must be remembered that Palestinians are at war with Israel.  The platform Hamas follows is exactly like Muslim Brotherhood charter that calls for the destruction of Israel and death of Jews.  Fatah has joined together many times already with Hamas, and the only thing separating them is the argument of who is the boss of both.  Gaza's Hamas terrorists constantly lob missiles, mortars and rockets into Southern Israel to this day.  Their latest attempt found the missile landing back in their own territory. Two Kassam rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza.  Terror was up 23% in November from Gaza including  5 mortar rockets that were shot.  "Hamas has threatened genocide against Israel; claimed that they have missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv; and built numerous terror tunnels into Israel, in the hopes of kidnapping soldiers and attacking Israeli civilians. "

Resource:  http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/.premium-1.562054?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.199%2C Haaretz.com palestinians ask to forgive $150m electricity bill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Authority
Myths and Facts-a concise record of the Arab-Israeli conflict by PhD Mitchell G. Bard, Joel Himelfarb
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/18/the-palestinian-authority-reportedly-just-gave-out-50000-bonuses-to-convicted-terrorists/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2013
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/174892#.UqOfc9JDs8o
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/07/palestinian-authority-takes-150m-from-us-doles-out-grants-to-convicted/

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