April 1, 2008 (AP) Senator Ted Kennedy put forward legislation in the US Senate today calling for a 10 square mile area in Israel (Kever Benjamin, Tel Mond and Raanana) to become a territory of the United States.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert welcomed the move stating that this area would then act as an Democratic Free Trade Zone creating countless jobs for both Israelis and Palestinians.
"A US territory placed in the middle of Israel would also become an
influential defense and economic boost for both the US military and the IDF as it has become policy for America to establish military bases on its territories, " said an Israeli defense official.
"Kever Benjamin would be no different than Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands or Guam in becoming American soil as a territory," said Mayor Ben Hamo. "We already have as many Americans living in the town as those who presently live on Long Island. The adjustment back to US law, taxes and social benefits would be an easy one."
(taken tongue-in-cheek from Leyden)
4 comments:
Why not? Thanks to foreign sovereign wealth funds, the US is becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of oil states.
There will be a sign up in KB, US Territory, Property of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Female turkey shwarma with pickled eggplant is our speciality. The shehs and their wifes are welcome to visit.
I didn't make the connection before that you are close to Ra'anana. My late uncle had a poultry farm in Ra'anana. He passed away in the late '70s. Unfortunately, his first wife and children were killed in the Holocaust and he was childless in his postwar remarriage. So the Israeli branch of my family died with him and I have no Israeli first cousins to visit.
I actually stayed at his house when I toured Israel the summer after his death - the estate had not yet been settled. At that time, Ra'anana was already making the transition from farm country to Tel-Aviv suburb - up Rechov Sokolov (I remember the address from the blue aerogram letters that went back and forth every few months) from my uncle's modest cottage they were already building multi-story apartment buildings. I can only imagine how much it has changed now.
My uncle was the eldest brother and had been sent ahead to Israel from the DP camp in Germany to scout out the situation. This was perhaps in '48 or '49, shortly after the founding of Israel. He was immediately drafted into the Israeli Navy (he had been a fisherman on the rivers of Poland and was able to swim, which was more than most Jews could do). He wrote back to my father and his other brother and told them that conditions were bad and they should change their plans. So that's how I became an American and not your neighbor (my father surely would have settled in Ra'anana alongside his brother).
J. with you taking care of the water engineering, it should be pleasant enough for them, the wives and camels.
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