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Wednesday, June 19, 2013

'No one has harmed Israel more than Shimon Peres'

Right-wing MK's on Wednesday slammed Shimon Peres' pretentious 90th birthday celebration.
Knesset members on the Right called the 11 million shekel event a waste of money, even though it was funded by contributions and not taxpayers.
"The event that we saw yesterday was pompous, wasteful, and pretentious," said MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud). "Woe to the country that cuts child welfare payments in the Knesset at the same time that its president holds a birthday celebration that costs millions. If it was funded by donations, Peres should have solicit contributions for the kids instead."
Feiglin, who led demonstrations against Peres during the Oslo diplomatic process in the 1990s, said the party was the last event he would go to. He said he and thousands of other Israelis could never forgive Peres for the diplomatic concessions that resulted in hundreds of deaths.
"There is no man who harmed the country more than Shimon Peres," Feiglin said. "The existence of the country in its land is being questioned in the West because of the Oslo process Peres symbolizes. Negotiations begin with an incorrect assumption that there is a Palestinian people with a right to a state, while the Palestinians deny our right to a Jewish state, and the world takes their side."
But MK's didn't just criticize the event itself. 
MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) lashed out at Peres for putting a map of Israel in pre-67 borders on the tickets of the event. [Jewish Home MK Orit] Struck noted the irony of Barbara Streisand singing a traditional song about God having mercy on our children with that map in the background.
On the way to the conference this morning, my taxi driver told me that it was reported in the Hebrew papers on Wednesday that Bill Clinton donated the entire $500,000 that he his foundation received from the Jewish National Fund for coming here to fund scholarships for Israeli students to attend university. That's very nice, but why is the JNF paying $500,000 for university scholarships when their mission is supposed to be land reclamation. Better they should use that money to free up scarce land in the country's center to create affordable housing for young couples who have no place to live.

2 comments:

  1. BTW Caroline Glick, in an amazingly concise summary, says that Israelis have bought land and do own parcels that they can build on. If that is the case, as opposed to the long term leases, like we can "buy" out on Native American land at their discretion in the US, then why not set up the County Clerk offices in Israel, hmmmm? Establishing "Counties" in Israel could be an interesting and absorbing next step!

    Anyway, listen to Caroline here:
    http://youtu.be/yx_ML5oCtMU

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  2. "Better they should use that money to free up scarce land in the country's center to create affordable housing for young couples who have no place to live."

    - Amen to that!

    Re. the long term leases, I understand that was something set up in Israel's early socialist days. Not much has changed since then

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