Prominent Israelis Will Propose a Peace Plan + GOP Bill Could Kill 70,000 Kids

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Subject: Prominent Israelis Will Propose a Peace Plan + GOP Bill Could Kill 70,000 Kids

 

This email contains excerpts of 3 extremely interesting articles for Just Foreing Policy followed by another two great and quick online action alerts.....

 

From Just Foreign Policy News

April 5, 2011

 

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On Eve of Meeting in Washington, Israel Announces More Housing Construction

Isabel Kershner, New York Times, April 4, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/world/middleeast/05mideast.html

 

Jerusalem - On the eve of a White House meeting between President Obama and President Shimon Peres of Israel, officials here took steps on Monday to advance controversial new housing in the West Bank and a disputed area of Jerusalem.

 

The steps, by two separate agencies, are the latest in a succession of awkwardly timed housing announcements. International players are seeking ways to resume Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which stalled last September when a partial Israeli moratorium on new building in the settlements expired.

 

Washington has given up its efforts to persuade Israel to commit to an additional settlement freeze; the Palestinians refuse to negotiate with Israel as long as settlement building continues.

 

On Monday, a municipal planning committee in Jerusalem gave preliminary approval for nearly 1,000 new housing units in the residential district of Gilo, in the south of the city. And the Israeli Ministry of Defense said it had completed zoning plans for several Jewish settlements in the West Bank, retroactively legalizing construction that was already under way.

[...]

Gilo is in a part of the city that Israel annexed after capturing it from Jordan in the 1967 war. Most Israelis consider it an integral neighborhood of Jerusalem, but to the Palestinians and much of the world, it is a settlement built in occupied territory in violation of international law. Israel's claim to sovereignty in the area of Jerusalem beyond the 1967 lines is not recognized internationally, and the Palestinians claim it as part of their future state.

 

In February, 14 of the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council backed a resolution demanding a halt in what it termed illegal construction in Israeli settlements. Only a veto by the United States blocked the resolution.

 

Peace Now, an Israeli advocacy group that opposes any Israeli building beyond the 1967 lines, said the Defense Ministry had approved development plans for four West Bank settlements. But it is not clear whether the plans relate to areas that are already built up or for additional sites.

 

Tensions over building in Jerusalem peaked in March 2010, when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was on a visit here meant to underscore American support for Israel. The Israeli Interior Ministry announced 1,600 new housing units for Jews in Ramat Shlomo, in East Jerusalem, infuriating the Obama administration. Mr. Netanyahu said at the time that he had been surprised by the move; the interior minister, Eli Yishai, leader of the right-wing Shas Party, insisted that the timing was coincidental.

 

After that episode, the prime minister's office said it would track the advancement of building plans more carefully to avoid new surprises.

 

But in November, Israel published plans for more than 1,000 housing units in other disputed areas of Jerusalem. That announcement came days before Mr. Netanyahu met with Mr. Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the United States, drawing criticism from Mr. Obama.

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/world/middleeast/05israel.html

 

  Prominent Israelis Will Propose a Peace Plan

Ethan Bronner, New York Times, April 4, 2011

 

Jerusalem - A group of prominent Israelis, including former heads of Mossad, Shin Bet and the military, are this week putting forth an initiative for peace with the Arab world that they hope will generate popular support and influence their government as it faces international pressure to move peace talks forward.

 

Called the Israeli Peace Initiative, the two-page document is partly inspired by the changes under way regionally and is billed as a direct response to the Arab Peace Initiative issued by the Arab League in 2002 and again in 2007. It calls for a Palestinian state on nearly all the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in much of East Jerusalem, an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, and a set of regional security mechanisms and economic cooperation projects.

 

"We looked around at what was happening in neighboring countries and we said to ourselves, 'It is about time that the Israeli public raised its voice as well,' " said Danny Yatom, a signer of the document and former head of Mossad, Israel's intelligence service. "We feel this initiative can bring along many members of the public."

 

Another member of the group, Yaakov Perry, a former head of Shin Bet, the internal security agency, said he sent a copy of the document on Sunday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who replied that he looked forward to reading it. The official unveiling is set for Wednesday in Tel Aviv, but a copy was made available to The New York Times. "We are isolated internationally and seen to be against peace," Mr. Perry said in a telephone interview. "I hope this will make a small contribution to pushing our prime minister forward. It is about time that Israel initiates something on peace."

 

Mr. Yatom has been a member of Parliament from the Labor Party, and Mr. Perry, now a banker, has recently joined Kadima, the main opposition party. Like all 40 people who signed the initiative, they are politically to the left of Mr. Netanyahu and most of his rightist government.

 

But the group was selected to seem as mainstream as possible. It includes scholars, businesspeople, and the son and daughter of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995. While polls show that the Israeli public has moved right in recent years, many political analysts argue that the public worries about the country's diplomatic isolation and is open to a peace deal.

 

The initiative's goal is resolution of all claims and an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict. It acknowledges "the suffering of the Palestinian refugees since the 1948 war as well as of the Jewish refugees from the Arab countries." It says it shares the statement of the Arab Peace Initiative "that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties."

 

The two-state solution envisioned for Israel and Palestine resembles the Clinton parameters of 2000. Palestine would be a nation-state for the Palestinians, and Israel "a nation-state for the Jews (in which the Arab minority will have equal and full civil rights as articulated in Israel's Declaration of Independence)."

 

The document calls for the 1967 lines to be a basis for borders, with agreed modifications based on swaps that would not exceed 7 percent of the West Bank.

 

Jerusalem's Jewish neighborhoods would go to Israel, and Arab neighborhoods to Palestine; the Temple Mount, known as the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims, would be under no sovereignty, although the Western Wall and Jewish Quarter of the Old City would be under Israel. On Palestinian refugees, the plan suggests financial compensation and return to the state of Palestine, not Israel, with "mutually agreed-upon symbolic exceptions" allowed into Israel.

 

Regarding Syria, the proposal calls for Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, with agreed minor modifications and land swaps in stages taking no longer than five years.

 

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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/usaid-administrator-rajiv-shah- republican-cuts-lead-child/story?id=13275542

 

USAID Administrator: GOP Bill Could Kill 70,000 Kids

Agency Chief Warns Against Republican Plans to Cut Foreign Aid Programs

 

Kirit Radia, ABC News, April 1, 2011

 

At least 70,000 children around the world could die if funding for global health programs is cut under the Republican budget proposal, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah warned Congress Thursday.

 

"What I worry about is that with the H.R. 1 budget [the proposed spending bill], if that becomes a baseline reality for fiscal year '12, that would be very problematic for some of our most important programs," Administrator Shah testified before the House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee. "We estimate, and I believe these are very conservative estimates, that H.R. 1 would lead to 70,000 kids dying," he said.

 

Shah said that 30,000 of those deaths would come if malaria control programs have to be scaled back, 24,000 would die from lack of support for immunizations, and another 16,000 would die at birth.

 

Republicans have proposed significant cuts to the international affairs budget, 19 percent below 2010 enacted base levels, as part of an effort to reduce deficit spending.

 

According to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, which lobbies to increase funding for international affairs, the Republican budget proposal would cut funding for global health programs by 11 percent, including a reduction in money for the Global fund for HIV/AIDS by 43 percent. The group says that would mean 5 million children would not receive malaria treatments and about 43,000 would not receive tuberculosis treatments.

 

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http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=ty9Vj1mAQgPr4lMuwyRXFQ..

 

Government shutdown looms ... and instead of offering real solutions so that Congress and the White House can pass a budget that works for real Americans, the GOP is going off the deep end, proposing plans to shift even more of our nation's money into the pockets of their corporate donors.

 

The latest: a proposal by House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) that guts Medicare. The Republican's new blueprint shifts costs for health care for seniors and the poor to beneficiaries and the states, but does NOTHING to close tax loopholes and subsidies which allow mega corporations like G.E. to pay zero in U.S. taxes.

 

Republicans actually have the gall to pretend that this proposal is somehow courageous, because of its massive scope and the supposedly "tough" decisions it includes. But taking medicine from seniors is not courageous, it's cowardly. Courage is standing up to big corporations and making them pay their fair share.

 

Speak Up! Tell Congress to LEAVE MEDICARE ALONE .. If they're serious about deficits, they will end corporate welfare before gutting the vital programs on which Americans depend for survival.

 

Medicare will go away, but subsidies to Exxon will be untouched? There is something seriously wrong with that picture.

 

Americans have already paid for their Medicare benefits. Taking that money to pay for tax cuts for corporate special interests, and billionaires like the Koch brothers and Donald Trump -- who incredibly pays the same tax rate as one of his mid-level managers - - amounts to theft, plain and simple, even if members of Congress are using the law to do it.

 

We can address the deficit and still protect necessities like Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits and education assistance. Those on the Right who say otherwise are lying to you and every other American -- right to your faces -- and they're offering a false choice. Billions in subsidies for oil companies (which Republicans voted to extend last month) ... tax loopholes that allow corporations like G.E. and several of Wall Street's largest banks to get a free ride ... that's are where Congress needs to put its focus.

 

Tell Congress: Hands off Medicare; Stop Corporate Welfare.

 

Thank you as always for your activism and your commitment to the American Way.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ben Betz, Online Strategy Manager

 

P.S. Under Rep. Ryan's plan, 90% of Americans would have their taxes increased but the richest would get another tax cut. Perversely, as a share of income, the poorest 20% would have by far the biggest increase and richest 1% would get the bulk of the cuts -- a massive 15%.

 

This assault on the poor and middle class is NOT the American Way. Speak out now.

 

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Today, Rep. Paul Ryan and House Republicans released a plan that not only would cut $5.8 trillion dollars from the federal budget over the next decade – but slash the top tax rate for individuals to 25 percent.

 

We believe a more sensible first step toward addressing our country’s revenue needs is the Fairness in Taxation Act (HR 1124), recently introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, that would create new top tax rates for millionaires and billionaires, and treat capital gains and dividends as ordinary income for these taxpayers.

 

The Fairness in Taxation Act could generate $78 billion a year for jobs, schools, roads, bridges, energy and other critical investments in our country’s future.

 

Raising millionaire taxes is a fair and necessary step toward economic sustainability and growth, so we’re teaming up with Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength to launch a sign-on letter to support this common sense plan.

 

>> If your household income is under $1 million, sign here   http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=WOujQuUNFjplHQv7SkDQ8uJ5r%2FbGmpRC

 

>> If your household income is over $1 million, sign here  

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=wuz5mu1jOx90fAKUkBYuQ%2BJ5r%2FbGmpRC

 

Next week we’ll send more actions you can take to support fair and equitable tax reform as Tax Day approaches.

 

Thanks for your commitment to tax fairness,

 

 

Chuck Collins, Alison Goldberg, Bob Keener, Ann Manning and Scott Klinger

 

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"We are dealing with a far more ominous threat than sickness and death.  We are dealing with the dark side of humanity -- selfishness, avarice, aggression.  All this has already polluted our skies, emptied our oceans, destroyed our forests and extinguished thousands of beautiful animals.  Are our children next? …  It is no longer enough to vaccinate them or give them food and water and only cure the symptoms of man’s tendency to destroy everything we hold dear.   Whether it be famine in Ethiopia, excruciating poverty in Guatemala and Honduras, civil strife in El Salvador or ethnic massacre in the Sudan, I saw but one glaring truth; these are not natural disaster but man-made tragedies for which there is only one man-made solution – Peace.” 

 

~Audrey Hepburn, April 1989, in a speech given while serving as goodwill ambassador for Unicef