Modi’in, 71724, Occupied Palestine
The EU Taxations and Customs Union has just published an updated list of ZIP codes in Israel, and their equivalent localities, which it sees as being in “occupied” territories, and thus do not qualify for preferential tariff treatment. Whereas up until now it included only the Golan, Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem, the new list also includes localities in the no-man’s land between Israel and Jordan between 1949 and 1967.
If you look at the map (click for larger resolution), there are only 2 distinct areas where such a buffer zone existed, Jerusalem and the northern Jerusalem corridor. That area was drawn up on a map by Moshe Dayan and Abdullah el-Tell, in November 30th 1948, following ceasefire talks between the two. Two lines were drawn that day: one in red that marked the Jordanian position, and one in green (literally the “Green Line”) which marked the Israeli position. The area between the lines is that no-man’s land.
So why does a crumbly old map matter for the EU? Well, it decided that that no-man’s land, clearly inside Israel’s “Green Line”, is now illegally occupied by Israel, henceforth all those localities inside are “settlements.”
Such treatment will be refused to products for
which the proof of origin indicates that the production conferring originating
status has taken place in a locality within the territories brought under Israeli
administration since June 1967.
The audacity is mind blowing.
The idiocy doesn’t stop there. The ZIP code list does actually list ZIP codes of all the localities in those areas, be they Jewish, Druze, or Alawite (as in case of the Golan) or mixed (like Neve Shalom). Three of the ZIP codes pop out immediately: those of Modi’in-Maccabim-Reut.
The city is made up of three formerly individual communities. Maccabim and Reut, founded in the late 80′s, and Modi’in city, built in the mid 90′s until today. The city’s main attraction is it’s ideal location, midway between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, complete with a train station, highways, open areas, forests and a fair share of archaeology. The hitch, according to the EU, is that Maccabim is built in said no-man’s land, and so are a house or two in Reut, and a ring road of Modi’in.
When you look at it on a map, it all becomes clear:
Click for large version
The Yellow line defines Reut, the orange one defines Maccabim, while the rest is Modi’in. You can also see the two 1949 lines in red, and the separation barrier built unopposed along the eastern line, strengthening the notion that even the Arabs see the eastern line as the Green Line.
The EU published three ZIP codes for Modi’in-Maccabim-Reut: 71724, 71728 and 71799. The latter one is comprised of all the green streets in Maccabim-Reut. Note that it only includes streets with residential houses, and not commerce or industrial. That is the last time the EU made sense.
71728 is comprised of just the two blue streets, and only the parts with houses abutting it. The two are Begin Avenue and Queen Esther streets. So why would this ZIP be a “settlment”? I think I may have an explanation. In the world of maps and plans, GIS are taking hold of manual work and scrutiny. What might have occurred is some junior level employee intersected the no-man’s land with Begin avenue, the eastern part of it circles Reut from the south and into the “No-No” zone. and because that street is wholly in ZIP code 71728, it was included.
71724 is comprised of the red streets. Here too only streets with house entrances are included, yet none of those streets, or houses, or airspace, or anything, are intersecting any disputed part of any map. Moreover, those who defined this ZIP code as “settlement”, is the EU commission in charge of defining and regulating tax and customs, in this case, for Israeli exporters to the EU. All of these three zones are residential, and therefore excluding them from preferential tariffs is like setting an export tax on Israeli crude oil. There isn’t any.
It is just another part of the EU delegitimization of Israel, and behind the supposed bureaucracy, lies the moral bankruptcy of it. I haven’t seen any such locality exemption in Morocco or Egypt, who are on level terms in with regards to EU trade agreements, and both have long-standing territorial disputes.
It always seems as though Israel is the only country being singled out.
Update: It appears my intersect hunch is right. I’ve been going through the ZIP codes in Jerusalem, and they includes al the streets in “west” Jerusalem that cross the western line. These streets include: Karlibach (93386), Kaspi (93554), Ein-Gedi (93383) and more. Needless to say, all the neighbourhoods in “east” Jerusalem, Jewish or Arab, old city included, are in the list.
But the award for the most stupid inclusion goes to ZIP code 93471, that includes just one street, the 50 meter long Tsidkiyahu street, with 5 houses in total. A “settlement” inside Jerusalem.
About the Author
Dan Smith has been exposing anti-Israel fallacies since the first time he opened the world wide web on Netscape Navigator, sometime in the late 90's. His lack of formal journalistic, political and sociological education means he is still capable of objective, unbiased views and opinions. A judge of media, pundits and media pundits.Filed Under: Judge Dan
London is illegally occupied Palestine.
I once made a map of the world and wrote “All Palestine/Shall Be Free”
I once made a map of the Ponderosa but Little Joe set it on fire.
signed
Hoss Cartright
Yup.
If the EU believes Israel has no right to the “no man’s land” up to the Green Line, what’s to stop the EU from deciding one ALL Israel cities and towns built beyond the 1947 Partition Line are also “settlements?”
Nothing.
This is in fact where delegitimization of Israel is headed and it has nothing to do with “occupied territories.” It has everything to do with Israel’s existence.
It comes as no surprise then that the Eurocrats are advancing the Arab war against the Jewish State by singling out “no man’s land” Jewish communities when even the Arabs have not come out against them.
But now that the EU has unilaterally decided their existence is “illegal” the Arabs cannot be any less adamant than the EU. Ironically enough, this kind of a bone-headed move from the EU is helping to drive the final nails into the coffin of the so-called two state solution.
And the EU has only itself to blame for facilitating that outcome.
To the Israel haters – all of Israel is “occupied territories”.
Yep. I’ve long ceased to be amazed by our enemies’ behavior. What’s still flabbergasting is that there are Israeli Jews who think there’s a difference between the pre- and post-1967 territories, and that “the world” would allow us (allow us!) to do whatever we want in the former if only we leave (read, ethnically cleanse of Jews) the latter.
Should an Israeli government be so unscrupulous as to abandon Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights, “world opinion” would swiftly transition to attacking the reduced Jewish state on the twin fronts of the Phakestinian “Right” of “Return” and the shearing of all Jewish nation-exclusive protections from Israel. With the usual violence from the Arab side, given the usual justifications from the Marxist tongue-cluckers, including the ones behind the European Union.
Within this holding cell of political correctness, with its inexorable drive toward removing national-exclusive protections for all nations in their states, not just the Jewish nation, no victory is possible, only a truce. There is no way out but this: To abandon the entire Marxist-conceived thought-prison of multiculturalism and stand for our exclusive national rights, declaring such exclusivity to be an integral part of the rights of mankind! Which means, consequently, criminalizing any sort of multinationalism (putting multiple nations under the same political roof, or Lebanonization) as treason.
Listen to the European Union and the United Nations and the majority of the worldwide media: They are nothing if not consistent in laying out those ideas that a nation that values its survival must avoid.
I doubt if Israelis would elect a government that would abandon territories without a tangible quid pro quo, such as explicit Arab renunciation of the “right of return.” Indeed, continued Arab hostility has cast the Israeli left to the fringe, including the Labor Party that was once the country’s guiding light under Ben-Gurion.
Did you mean to write, “I doubt if Israelis would elect a government that would abandon any more territories without a tangible quid pro quo”??
I can certainly think of a few territories that Israel left “without a tangible quid pro quo” (or even an INtangible quid pro quo).
Whatever logic there was behind the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was thoroughly discredited by subsequent events. Since the Arabs have shown themselves to be incapable of compromise, this talk of future withdrawal is pretty much academic.
Plus the trauma of the hitnatkut gave us a teste of what could happen if something larger were to be done.
Or am I being naive?
taste
Does Israel have the right to appeal this apparently unilateral decision? And can the U.S. play a meaningful role in encouraging our trading partners in the EU to be more even-handed towards our Israeli friends?
The most meaningful Israeli response would be to exclude the EU from any further involvement in the peace process and reduce the “quartet” to a trio. The most effective U.S. response would be a public rebuke, although I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.
I like that approach.
Sad to say I’m not surprised of three things: 1) that more Israelis have posted here to this comment; 2) that the EU is behaving this way to further incite the Arabs to inflame the ongoing troubles in the middle east and 3) that the US has said anything or not.
I will say that everything occurring today, not only the mideast crisis but the disasters along with everything else is foretold in the Bible and is to be expected before the Messiah returns.
Everyone may as well prepare to meet the LORD because the day of judgment is coming as is very, very near!
Well, I did ask about this, dod I not? About how the green line was thick, and what about places on it? (I went to school in what was once no-man’s-land, in Jerusalem.)
I could not study the map. It just made me sick.
I’d like a Green Line Tour, how about you? Maybe justice could prevail if Bibi took his big fat thumb off the scales.
You mean walk down Jerusalem, trying to keep to the Line? I suppose you would need GPS; no-one who lives there has any idea they are anywhere but Israel.
The other part I don’t understand, since you’ve never told us wha that pseudo-right-winger has actually don’t to torpedo anything. (Hurting people’s feelings I’m not interested in.)
Netanyahu believes the only way to save the Jewish people (apparently) no matter where they live or to what nation they are loyal, Israel must bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. This guy scares the crap out of me.
One of the reasons I live here, is that I don’t see much future for the Jewish people anywhere else. But this sounds like the reasoning that led the the Balfour Declaration being watered down.
Let me rephrase your statement, and now tell me what’s wrong with it.
“Bibi believes that to avoid a second Holocaust, the US must bomb Iran’s nuclear sites.”
BTW, I hope he scares our enemies at least that much.
Your rephrasing is absolutely perfect. You speak the truth my faithful Indian companion. Now if only Bibi would be so bold to speak the real truth.
I thought that WAS his policy.
Bibi scares you. Not the prospect of Muslims wielding nukes. Got it.
What is it with Leftists and their penchant for putting the blame on the wrong side just about ever time?
No, nuclear-armed Muslims scare me, too. Fear is not a zero-sum game. The only real antidote to this fear is a political solution, not a military one. Our side has to beat the crap out of your side here in the United States and in Israel in order to buy the time to make sanctions work on Iran. Who is telling you an Israeli strike on Iran will work? You have any number of well-informed, rational, reasonable people offering sound advice to the Israeli people, why would you go off in the opposite direction and support a military strike on Iran as proposed by Netanyahu/Barak?
“The only real antidote to this fear is a political solution, not a military one.”
Same line as usual, huh? The rationalist folly, which posits the Muslims to be just as reasonable and materialist-oriented as us.
Sorry to break it to you, but we’re dealing with an irrational, suicide-murderer mentality. They are ready to sacrifice themselves and their entire nation-state. Sanctions won’t stop them any more than the threat of house demolitions could stop our local suicide-murdering Arab terrorists.
“You have any number of well-informed, rational, reasonable people…”
In our day and age, the experts and the laypeople are equally qualified on foreign policy. The former and latter have the same chance of being right or wrong. This is not about having the correct facts, it’s about having the correct opinion.
You seem to have the strange idea we are about to strike Iran. I don’t. But for carrots to work, there has to be a stick.
My hope is that we scare Iran enough that they slow down until the regime is overthrown.
Of course, if we reasonable could, we should. But for Obama to try to undercut us by giving away info is just sick.
Oh, who is on “your side” in Israel? I mean, which major party?
Meretz, Labor and Kadima come close enough to be on “My Side.” It is widely reported by Israeli news organizations, that Israel is poised to strike Iranian nuclear sites before the U.S. elections in November.
Has this been investigated? Maybe its just programming screwups and is prevalent everywhere, or would be if there were separate tariff regimes.