the Gaza Strip and

The US could consider reallocating its aid to Israel.

Since 1949, the US has given Israel a total of $84,854,827,200 in financial aid.

The interest costs borne by US taxpayers on behalf of Israel were, as of 2003, $49,937,000,000, making the total amount of aid given to Israel from 1949 to 2002 nearly $135 billion ($134,791,507,200).

As to military aid, the US Foreign Military Financing budget allocation to Israel for FY 2001 was $1.98 billion, about 60% of which stays in the U.S, going directly into the accounts of various defense contractors.

The Economic Support Fund Budget allocation for the same year was $840 million.

The sum of nearly 3 billion dollars per annum is typical.

Moreover, tax-deductible donations to American charities, which initially constituted one-quarter of Israel's budget, are estimated to exceed $1.5 billion per year.

The only way that the US can feasibly reallocate the aid money is if peace in the region can be guaranteed, and the only way to do that is for the Israelis to adequately satisfy the Palestinians in some meaningful way.

However, the Israelis will likely never allow the Palestinians a viable state.

A contiguous corridor, however narrow, between

the West Bank is out of the question, while the West Bank is increasingly crisscrossed by Israeli “security roads” and military reservations.

The best that the Palestinians can hope for is something like what Bophuthatswana land was under South Africa's apartheid government,; i.e., a noncontiguous scattering of ethnic ghettos on the marginal lands.

In addition, there is the question of a national capital.

Ram Allah is by all accounts a pleasant city, but is probably too small to serve as the capital of a Palestinian population in the multimillions, and the population of East Jerusalem is becoming, as a matter of Israeli government policy, more Jewish each year.

Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt shortly after takeoff from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport on January 3, 2004, killing all one hundred and thirty-five passengers, most of whom are French tourists, and all thirteen crew members.

The findings of the crash investigation will be controversial, with accident investigators from the different countries involved unable to agree on the cause of the accident.

Flight 604 is the deadliest air disaster in Egypt until it is surpassed almost twelve years later by the bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268.

It remains the deadliest accident involving a 737 Classic aircraft.

Two large protests in Albania with crowds of up to twenty thousand in February 2004 demand that Nano again step down for failing to properly manage the growth of the economy.

Nano is often jokingly referred to as the "Yo-Yo Prime Minister of Albania" because of his many times in office.

Referendums on the Annan Plan for Cyprus, which proposes to reunite the island, take place in both the Greek-controlled and the Turkish-controlled parts on April 24, 2004.

Although the Turkish Cypriots vote in favor, the Greek Cypriots reject the proposal.

...Bulgaria, ...

Slovenia joins NATO on March 29, 2004, together with six former Warsaw Pact countries—...

...Estonia.

...Latvia, and ...

...Lithuania, ...