Robert Clinton, an Arizona State University law professor who specializes in federal Indian law, said the settlement alone would not resolve the trust problem because many of the heirs who own tiny interests in parcels may not be willing to sell them.
The settlement alone would cost the city about $1.7 billion in fiscal 2002, assuming somewhat optimistically that teachers, police officers and unions that represent other workers accept the same package tentatively agreed to earlier this month by the 125,000-member District Council 37 union.
When it is complete, there will be 246 permanent houses on this settlement alone: 136 for Tamil families and 110 for Muslim families.
It has already cost Bank of America tens of billions of dollars in litigation settlements, let alone losses resulting in a $20.6 billion charge to earnings in the second quarter.
When it comes to Israel's abuses, governments around the world have offered nothing but lip service; while dozens of countries face US, EU or UN sanctions for far lesser transgressions, it has taken years for EU governments to even discuss timid steps such as labelling goods from illegal Israeli settlements, let alone actually banning them.
At least seven other cases of police brutality have been reported in the past three years and brutality settlements this year alone have cost the city over $1 million.
When I undertook the first Congressional assessment of the plight of Palestinian refugees for Senator Kennedy's Senate Subcommittee on Refugees back in 1973, I realized then, as I know now, that the construction of settlements, let alone their so-called "natural growth" is patently self-defeating to Israel's desire for Palestinians to drop their demand for the so-called "Right of Return".
"We are becoming increasingly concerned that effective and future-proof remedies might not emerge through settlement discussions alone," said the letter signed by the group.
Regardless of one's personal views about either adult movies or their performers, one must wonder whether JPMorgan Chase, which reportedly paid more than $20 billion in penalties and settlements in 2013 alone, might have more important things to do, like cleaning up its own financial house.
New developments within existing urban areas will often be easier to serve by public transport than stand-alone settlements, and eco-quarters could also set a wider example to be followed.
