JERUSALEM NEWS
NEWS AND INFORMATION
Events, happenings, and Opinions Concerning
Israel, Israelites, Judah, and Everyone Else
Jerusalem News-772
Jerusalem News-772
21 Iyar 5768, 26 May 2008
Contents:
1. 50,000 Arabs Left Gaza, Many More on
the Way
2. (a) OPEC Strangling American Economy
(b) The Big Question: Does Opec
have too much power, and is it to blame for the high price of oil?
3. Is there such a thing as a Palestinian People?
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1. 50,000 Arabs Left Gaza, Many More on
the Way
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126243
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) PA prime minister Salam Fayyad has confirmed that 50,000 Arabs
have left Gaza since Hamas took over. He said many times that amount would like
to go if they could.
Speaking on Tuesday at a conference in Bethlehem designed to attract investors
to the PA-controlled areas, Fayyad said that "hundreds of thousands" of Arabs
are seeking ways to follow the 50,000 who have already left.
Fayyad linked the exodus to the fighting between Hamas and Fatah, which resulted
in the Hamas take-over of Gaza and a sharp decline in international aid to
Gaza. PA sources admit that the clash has caused a great rift among the Arabs
of the PA-controlled areas (Gaza, Judea, and Samaria), weakened the PA's
international status, shaken internal security - and brought about increased
emigration.
Conference organizer Hassan Abu Libdeh agreed: "There is a Palestinian brain
drain caused by the difficulties of living here," he said.
A year ago, in May 2007, the Mufti of Jerusalem for the PA, Sheikh Muhammed Amin
Hussein, issued a religious ruling banning emigration from "the land of
Palestine." Hussein acknowledged in his ruling at the time that many young
Arabs are flooding foreign embassies in an effort to receive residency permits.
2. (a) OPEC Strangling American Economy
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080523/EDITORIAL/519422339
By Robert Zubrin - (WaTimes)
As oil prices continue to top $120 a barrel, it is time for Congress to take
definitive action to break the OPEC cartel, which is taxing the United States
into a depression.
This year, with OPEC-rigged oil prices exceeding $120 a barrel, Americans will
pay $1 trillion for their oil supply, and the world as a whole will pay $4
trillion. These petroleum costs are up more than a factor of 10 from what they
were in 1999, and represent a huge highly regressive tax on the world economy.
For Americans, the $1trillion oil levy is equivalent to a 40 percent increase in
income taxes across the board, with 60 percent the sum being paid over in
tribute to foreign governments.
Make no mistake: OPEC is responsible. This can be seen clearly by comparing OPEC
and non-OPEC oil production since 1973, when the cartel's governments took
effective control of the Middle Eastern oil supplies away from the international
oil companies. Since 1973, non-OPEC oil production has doubled, in tune with the
doubling in size of the world economy over the same period. However, while OPEC
has engaged in many wild, short-term production expansions and contractions to
manipulate the market, overall OPEC production has barely increased over the
past third of a century despite the fact that they are sitting on top of 80
percent of the world's oil reserves, including all the most accessible oil
reserves. This shows that they have had a long-term policy of limiting
production in order to increases prices. As economic growth in China and India
increases worldwide demand, the OPEC policy of strangling production is
threatening to send the U.S. economy into a depression.
The OPEC policy of limiting production in the face of increasing demand is like
that of a cruel dog-owner who puts a collar snugly around the neck of a young
puppy, but then refuses to let it out as the dog matures. So as the dog grows,
the collar gets tighter and tighter until it chokes to death. But it is not the
growth of the dog that kills the dog; the culprit is the dog owner who refuses
to let out the collar. This is what OPEC is now doing to the United States, the
industrial world at large, and to the Third World - whose impoverished people
can least afford to pay for overpriced oil.
Averaged over the U.S. population of 300 million people, the $ 1 trillion
OPEC-induced burden levies a tribute amounting to $3,300 per head, for every
man, woman and child in the country (or $13,200 for a family of four). The
average American worker makes about $45,000 per year, or $35,000 after taxes
paid to Uncle Sam. In 1999, a worker supporting a family of four had to pay 3
percent of his disposable income for oil. Now Uncle Saud and Uncle Hugo are
taxing him for over 35 percent of his take-home pay. Is it any wonder that such
people are not buying houses? Such a massive drain of cash from the pockets of
consumers must perforce cause the real estate market to collapse? as well as
affecting many other kinds of consumer goods.
And this is just the beginning. OPEC leaders, including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez
and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are already openly discussing raising the price
of oil to $200 a barrel or more. In that case, Americans' oil tribute will rise
to $1.8 trillion per year, paid to an evil cartel whose total worldwide
extortions will cost the global economy more than $7 trillion. If we want to
avoid complete economic defeat, we need to destroy the oil cartel.
In order to stop the OPEC looting of the U.S. and world economies, we need to
break the cartel's vertical monopoly by creating fuel choice on a global scale.
Congress can make this happen with a stroke of the pen, by passing a law
requiring that all new cars sold in the United States be flex-fuel vehicles that
can run on any combination of gasoline, ethanol or methanol. The technology is
readily available and it only costs about $100 per vehicle.
By making America a flex-fuel vehicle market, we will effectively make flex fuel
the international standard, as all significant foreign car makers would be
impelled to convert their lines over as well. Around the world, gasoline would
be forced to compete at the pump against alcohol fuels made from any number of
sources: This includes current commercial crops like corn and sugar; cellulosic
ethanol made from crop residues and weeds; methanol, which can be made from any
kind of biomass without exception as well as coal, natural gas, and recycled
urban trash.
By creating such an open-source fuel market, we can enormously expand and
diversify humanity's fuel resource base. We will thus protect all nations from
continued blackmail, robbery and -indeed, in some cases - starvation induced by
the oil cartel.
(b) For an ALTERNATE CONSIDERATION see:
The Big Question: Does
Opec
have too much power, and is it to blame for the high price of oil?
By Michael Savage
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-big-question-does-opec-have-too-much-power-and-is-it-to-blame-for-the-high-price-of-oil-831484.html
Extract:
How can Opec's influence be broken?
By buying oil from nations outside Opec, a tactic which has loosened Opec's
control of the oil market since the 1970s. But there are problems there too. The
main non-Opec nation is Russia, the world's second largest oil producer. As
previous cuts in gas supplies to mainland Europe demonstrated, relying on Russia
for resources brings its own risks. And there are just as many fears that oil
production may have peaked in the non-Opec nations too. Russia's oil production
fell for the first time in a decade last month. Production in China also seems
to be nearing a peak, if not already on a plateau, and the same has been said of
Norway. A gloomy assessment from the wealth management firm Sanford Bernstein
predicts that production in the non-Opec region could peak this year.
And in the long term?
By weaning ourselves off the precious black commodity Opec nations provide. With
the oil price continuing to head north, using less of the stuff is an
increasingly attractive option. More efficient use would help too, say through
the adoption of smaller cars, as would heavier investment in alternative fuels
and energy saving technologies. Demand for oil is growing, with the US alone
predicted to need an additional seven million barrels a day by 2030. While
demand remains so high, the coffers of Opec nations will continue to bulge.
So is Gordon Brown right to point the finger at Opec?
Yes...
* It controls 40 per cent of crude oil production, so of course its decisions
have a huge bearing on the price of oil
* Opec nations claim to have ever greater reserves, so they could easily
increase production if they so wished
* Developed and developing nations are hungry for oil. With no shortage of
customers, Opec can only gain from pricey oil
No...
* Instability in securities markets has led to speculation in the commodity
futures markets, pushing up the price of oil
* Opec does not produce more oil because it cannot - we have overestimated the
level of reserves it has left
* There are plenty of other reasons for high oil prices, such as the level of
demand and "above ground" security risks
3. Is there such a thing as a
Palestinian People?
From: Steve Collins <scollins@sio.midco.net>
Shalom Yair,
I think you'll want to read this!
Steve
Hadrian's Curse: The Secret All The
Arabs Know (Part I)
By: Tsafrir
Ronen
At the Annapolis Conference, President Bush spoke about his vision
regarding the virtues of two nations for two peoples.
One of those peoples , the Jewish people, has a clear identity.
Yet it would be interesting to know the identity of the second people.
Already in 1977, a central spokesman of that "second people" (a PLO leader,
Zahir Muhsein, head of the as-Sa?iqa Organization) revealed the truth in an
interview to the Dutch newspaper Trouw. Here are his words:
"The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a
Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the
State of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference
between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political
and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian
people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of
a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism for tactical reasons.
Jordan, a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa
and Jaffa. As a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa,
Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of
Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.?
Are you in shock? If the Palestinian people do not exist, what
does exist? Arabs who live in Eretz Yisrael, and who have disguised
themselves as "Palestinians" for fraudulent purposes. "Only a means for
continuing our struggle against the State of Israel!" in Muhsein's words.
A
fraud so successful that even George W. Bush can be found seeking a state
for that fraud!
Do you think Zahir Muhsein is alone? This transparent fraud about
the so-called existence of Palestine is revealed to us by all Arab leaders....
http://www.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfm?
contentid=31740&mode=a&contentname=
Hadrian%27s_Curse%3A_The_Secret_All_The_Arabs_
Know_%28Part_I%29_&recnum=1§ionid=14
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