The geopolitics of housing starts
Published: 19 May, 2009, 20:12
I couldn’t pass this one up considering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first visit to the Obama White House.
Today the US Commerce Department reported that housing starts in the country plummeted 12.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 458,000 units. This is the lowest on record going back to January 1959. This is a bad sign. Housing starts have traditionally been a good indicator of the US economy’s health.
The housing market in the US is taking a bath, but not so in Israel’s “legally defined occupation” of the West Bank. There has been an officially sanctioned housing boom there since 1967 – all of it illegal under international law.
According to an AFP story, citing the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) as the source:
* Since 1967 Israel’s occupation and later annexation of all of Jerusalem resulted in the expropriation of 6,000 acres (2,430 hectares) of occupied territory.
* By the end of 2007, a total of 50,197 homes had been built for the Jewish settlers on the expropriated land. And this applies to greater-Jerusalem, not the rest of the West Bank. In the meantime, not a single dwelling for the Palestinians has been built. Indeed, as I write this blog, Palestinian dwellings are being torn down – again illegally.
* In this year alone, 23 homes and other dwellings in east Jerusalem were leveled and 1,052 demolition orders have been issued.
* This is at a time when new building permits are mushrooming for Jewish settlers in east Jerusalem.
* How has the housing boom impacted the local population? More than 100,000 east Jerusalem residents now have no direct access to the city because of Israel's separation barrier. These residents effectively live in ghettos.
The US and Israel have very different housing issues to attend to. In the US, corruption, greed, and the lack of regulation have brought the American economy down to its knees. In Israel, the blatant disregard of international law and obvious determination to force the Palestinians to leave the West Bank has resulted in Jewish settlers eyeing bargains backed up with (il)legal guarantees from people like Netanyahu.
All of this could be stopped if the US and Israel observed international law. And this can happen. First, the US should finally face up to fact that Israel only wants “negotiations” – never a resolution to the conflict. Second, Obama can make the Israelis change course. Does he have the vision and moral strength to do so?
