Friday, September 25, 2009

Is The New Word "Enclaves"?

One Eric B. Lipps of Staten Island doesn't like something about Israel and here's one paragraph from his NYTimes letter yesterday:

If President Obama cannot even get Israel to stop seizing land from Palestinians and building Jewish-only enclaves on it, it’s hard to see how his supposed new focus on such issues as “the status of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the borders of a future Palestinian state” can possibly get anywhere. And if he’s not willing to stick to his position on what ought to be a comparatively easy issue, it’s hard to believe that he’s really serious about these much more contentious ones.


"Jewish-only enclaves" in the Land of Israel.

On Sept. 22, the NYT carried an AP story which included this:

Netanyahu insists there's no way he will halt construction in Israeli enclaves on land the Palestinians want for their state.


And, on Sept. 15, the NYT carries this from Reuters:

The World Court calls the settlements illegal and Palestinians say the enclaves could deny them a viable state.



Hmmm.

Well, yesterday, the very same day, in the very same newspaper of record, that we read Lipps' letter, I found this:

Manhattan Chinatown has not only maintained its urban roots, but is expanding. It has already subsumed most of Little Italy (including Columbus Park, named after a man who was an Italian-American hero despite mysteries about his origins). It has also moved in once Jewish-enclaves of the Lower East Side, including swallowing the Eldridge Street Synagogue. The synagogue may have been one of the first built by the Eastern European Jewish immigrants in their new homeland, but it now embraces its new neighbors with an annual Egg Roll and Egg Cream festival.


So, even in New York there were enclaves.

Jewish enclaves.

Gosh, what will come of this?

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