Saturday, July 04, 2009 HELD AL-QUDS: Jews and Arabs should not live next to one another, a local newspaper on Friday quoted Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Attias as saying."We can all be bleeding hearts, but I think it is unsuitable to live together," the minister was quoted as telling the Israel Bar Association in Tel Aviv."Arabs don't have where to live, so they buy apartments in places with a Jewish nature, which causes unwanted friction," said Attias, of the religious Shas party.In a reference to Arab Israelis, he also complained about "the expansion of a population that doesn't love the state of Israel, to say the least."The English-language newspaper quoted Arab-Israeli MP Ahmed Tibi as lashing out at Attias."Relating to Israel's Arab citizens as something threatening and foreign, coming from a minister in a government that should be distributing resources (equally) borders on violating the law against incitement and racism," Tibi said.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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