Without the backing of the U.S. Israel Lobby and its control over the major U.S. institutions, Netanyahu would not have been able to speak so defiantly against world opinion as he laid this claim on Ariel as a permanent Israeli city:
"Anyone who understands the geography of the Land of Israel knows how important Ariel is. The settlement enterprise here is the heart of our land.
"Here is where our forefathers dwelled and here is where we will stay and build. We want to strengthen the peace and co-existence with our neighbors but this will not stop us from continuing with our lives here, where we'll continue to plant trees and to build.
"Ariel, the capital of Samaria [the northern West Bank], will be an integral, inseparable part of the state of Israel in any future arrangement."
Ariel was created as a settlement near Jerusalem. After a few years of growth, it was surrounded by the "security wall", which has nothing to do with security and everything to do with land theft. The city grew, its citizens housed in modern red-roofed structures, so colored, it is rumored, to serve as a marker for Israeli military aircraft in future wars.
During the summer of 2011, the Israeli government, which had refused even to consider President Obama's 2009 request for a settlement building halt, approved another 277 housing units for Ariel.
This growing city needed its swimming pools and its shopping malls. Their garbage disposal, however, was not a problem. Settlers in Ariel send their garbage down hill toward surrounding villages, where it pollutes Palestinian water supplies and fouls their fields.
Ariel was designed to expand. Educational institutions grew rapidly, culminating in the final approval of Israel's first university within the West Bank.
A few days before Mitt Romney, the Republican presumptive nominee for the U.S. presidential November election, is expected to arrive for a planned visit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein asserted that the "Al-Asqa Mosque is part of Israeli territory".
This inflamatory assertion immediately drew "unprecedented condemnation from across the Islamic world." Of course it did, and knowing just how far into the Zionist camp Romney has already moved, we will not hear the slightest complaint on this absurd anti-Islam Israeli statement from the Republican candidate.
As we move toward the U.S. November elections, a look back to early 2009 is instructive:
As James Mann tells the story in his book, The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power:
"Obama's mentor Abner Mikva, other Chicago friends, and several members of his new administration, such as Rahm Emanuel, had all emphasized the importance of persuading Israel to stop building new settlements in the occupied territories claimed by the Palestinians. once in the White House, Obama moved fairly quickly to put this idea in effect.
"In his Cairo speech in June, 2009, he said, without qualification, 'It is time for these settlements to stop.'"
As we have seen in the steady march of Ariel to university status, the settlements did not stop.
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