Chomsky: In Israel, a Tsunami Warning

Gaza, who's GDP places them in the twentieth percentile, has a life expectancy more similar to countries in the fiftieth percentile. Claims of Israeli prosecution are greatly and often exaggerated by Chomsky amongst others.

Indeed the Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity to find peace with Israel. Notice that in this attempt, they are asking for statehood without mentioning their willingness to end the government funded (and thus foreign aid funded) indoctrination of children into hatred, both in Gaza and the West Bank. This attempt to unilaterally declare statehood is a negotiation tactic--to not negotiate.

What's the next step? If this passes and Hamas still does not revise their charter, calling for the "obliteration of Israel", what will Israel be able to negotiate with in exchange for peace? Tel Aviv? All of Jerusalem?

And this doesn't take into account the absolutely ridiculous notion of any country exchanging tangible land for an intangible promise of a cessation of terrorism.

The fact that so many countries support this initiative paints a bleak picture about the world's willingness to sell out a country in exchange for favor in the eyes of the resource abundant Middle Eastern nations.

Interesting data.

2009 Israeli military spending [1]: $13 billion*

2009 West Bank GDP [2]: $12.8 billion

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*excludes the $3 billion per year in US military aid to Israel (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2007/07/29/afx3963706.html)

Sources

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...

2. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

What's interesting is this combined with housing-price protests... there are interesting times ahead for Israel: http://972mag.com/breaking-protesters-block-streets-in-centr...