Friday, July 06, 2012

13%...And Growing

In an otherwise biased report on the latest Oxfam report on economic prosperity that isn't - and who is to be blamed if not me and my fellow revenant residents - I found this figure at the BBC:

Oxfam says about 66,000 Palestinians and 9,500 settlers live in the area...who account for 13% of the population

13%.

That is very good news.


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P.S.

The official response is inadequate:

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London, Amir Ofek, said: "Oxfam's latest report on the situation in the Palestinian territories puts a clearly political agenda above any humanitarian concern."  "Its call to the international community and to NGOs to initiate projects which clearly violate existing agreements is irresponsible and inflammatory. Far from advancing peace, such an approach undermines the prospects of reaching a negotiated resolution to the conflict."

While not untrue, it doesn't address any of the supposed "facts".  Are there actually that number of Arabs in the area?  Have they engaged in terror?  What was their pre-'67 and even pre-'48 population and what can we learn?  If the 20 Jewish communities disappear, how many jobs are lost?  Do they Arabs own the land there or are they recent immigrants or what?  Did they have any industry before Israel took over administration of the area, any export trade, what was their agriculture like, etc.?


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

it is the right number - in the Jordan valley alone...