Next time you hear a US corporate TV newsreader portraying Israel as the victim of Palestinian 'terrorist agression', read this:
* 78% of the illegal settlement population comes from Europe and North America.
* Jewish settlers in the West Bank consume 5 times more water than Palestinians - water that is illegally taken from Palestinian water sources.
* 80% of the settlers consider themselves to be economic settlers who live in the settlements to benefit from Israeli government incentives.
* Palestinian travel is restricted or entirely prohibited on 41 roads and sections of roads throughout the West Bank, covering a total of over 700 kilometers of roadway. Illegal Israeli settlers can travel freely on these roads.
* There are two different laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; one for the illegal Israeli settlers - civil law - and one for the native Palestinians - military law.
* There are now more illegal Jewish settlers in Palestinian East Jerusalem than Palestinians.
* Israeli Jews living, working or investing illegally in the settlements are entitled to significant financial benefits from the Government of Israel. These include generous loans for the purchase of apartments, exemption from tuition fees in schools and reductions in income taxes.
* Settlements with their bypass roads and security zones occupy 42% of the West Bank.
* Before Israel evacuated its 8,000 settlers from Gaza Strip, they were occupying 32% of the area, with the remainder inhabited by 1.4 million Palestinians. The population density was 600 per square kilometer in the settlements to 55,000 per square kilometer in the refugee camps, making Gaza the most densely populated place on earth.
* There are now more than 200 illegal Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank.
* During the Oslo era, from its inauguration on the White House lawn in September 1993 until June 2001, Israel completed construction on 20,371 settlement units; a number equal to 62% of all settlement housing built from 1967 to 1993.
* The wall Israel is constructing in the West Bank is four times the length of the Berlin Wall and three times as high.
* The length of the 'Green Line' - the border between Israel and the West Bank - is 315 kilometers. The path of the Wall is 670 kilometers long.
* Israel receives approximately US $10 million every single day from the United States. The US corporate media never mentions this.
So ask your local politician if and why they support Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine....
www.TheLiberalStore.com - March 16, 2009