Political/Legislative Update - October 17, 2007
This week's political update was written by Danielle Childs (BC'10). Each week, a different member of the political affairs committee will be contributing the update. Thank you to Danielle for starting us off:
1. On Sunday Condoleezza Rice traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories to engage in peace talks with political groups. These talks were not meant to provide an outcome, rather they were designed to further the discussion of what each group is willing to cooperate on in the upcoming peace conference.
2. Sunday night Defense Minister Ehud Barak flew to the United States to discuss joint anti-missile projects that are necessary for any future handover of the West Bank to the Palestinians. Israel and the United States have been working closely on many anti-missile projects to defend Israel from Hezbollah guerrilla attacks.
3. Also on Sunday, the New York Times reported that the Israeli air attack last month, which occurred on September 6th, against Syria was in fact an attack on a nuclear reactor. Israel has made it clear that it will not have any nuclear activity in neighboring countries with ties to terrorism. This air attack brings back memories of Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.
4. Last week, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law divesting all funds from California's pension funds (CalPERS and CalSTRS) from Iran. The California pension funds are the two largest in the world and with this bill, California becomes the third state to divest pension funds from Iran (after Florida and Illinois).
1. On Sunday Condoleezza Rice traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories to engage in peace talks with political groups. These talks were not meant to provide an outcome, rather they were designed to further the discussion of what each group is willing to cooperate on in the upcoming peace conference.
2. Sunday night Defense Minister Ehud Barak flew to the United States to discuss joint anti-missile projects that are necessary for any future handover of the West Bank to the Palestinians. Israel and the United States have been working closely on many anti-missile projects to defend Israel from Hezbollah guerrilla attacks.
3. Also on Sunday, the New York Times reported that the Israeli air attack last month, which occurred on September 6th, against Syria was in fact an attack on a nuclear reactor. Israel has made it clear that it will not have any nuclear activity in neighboring countries with ties to terrorism. This air attack brings back memories of Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.
4. Last week, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law divesting all funds from California's pension funds (CalPERS and CalSTRS) from Iran. The California pension funds are the two largest in the world and with this bill, California becomes the third state to divest pension funds from Iran (after Florida and Illinois).