It takes a special kind of chutzpah for a US President to make policy pronouncements on what should be the border of Israel; when he cannot even effective secure the borders of his own country.
x-posted to The Last Amazon, exiled.
And she possesses a real intellect. I admit I haven’t paid much attention to Sarah Honig (whose column is often carried in the Jerusalem Post) in recent years. My very, very bad. She puts her two shekels on the latest Jerusalem controversy and I quote an excerpt:
The Hurva was built between 1857-1864 on the ruins of an earlier structure constructed by Rabbi Judah the Pious in the late 17th century (over a synagogue site dating to the second century). There wasn’t a wee murmur of protest about this wanton arson nor about the devastation of 57 other Old City synagogues by conquistador Arabs. Likewise, not a whisper of displeasure about Arabs ripping out Mount of Olives tombstones to construct public latrines. The international community was decidedly unbothered when for 19 years Jews were prohibited from praying at their holiest sites.
But the Jewish return was deemed a reprehensible violation of good conduct codes by which, we know, all other nations faithfully abide. Ravaging the Hurva was acceptable, but rebuilding it is a sin against pie-in-the-sky peace. It was pardonable to cast Jews out of the Old City, but their homecoming deserves unreserved condemnation.
Jerusalem was always one united city save for a 19-year illegality arising from an Arab invasion in violent breach of the UN partition resolution. While the world convivially tolerated Arab occupation of half of Jerusalem, it never recognized the residual Jewish hold even on the other half, west Jerusalem. In the spirit of skewed evenhandedness, the global consensus now is that the result of 1948’s illegal Arab invasion must be upheld and that Jews must be barred from anywhere that the invaders once occupied.
That’s why planning permits for 1,600 additional apartments in Ramat Shlomo irk the world. Ramat Shlomo isn’t in east Jerusalem but to its north, doesn’t encroach on Arab neighborhoods and its birth 12 years ago triggered no squawk. It’s situated on what were barren slopes that overlook the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway. Ramat Shlomo’s already existing 2,300 housing units were erected on vacant wasteland, dispossessing nobody. Currently 17,500 Jews reside there. They marry, give birth and their families grow. Is their neighborhood to be made judenrein because for 19 years Jews were barred from it?
If anyone owes an apology for rank insults, Obama, Biden and Clinton do for assuming they can dismiss 3,000 years of Jewish history in the city which Jews put on humanity’s map. This trio disrespects us and our sensibilities and in so doing raises Arab expectations and deepens Arab intransigence. With the world’s one superpower espousing the Fatah/Hamas line, why should Arabs evince the slightest flexibility? Obama has placed all the bargaining chips in Arab hands.
On May 29, 1995, post-Oslo and five months before his assassination, Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset: “There is one issue on which there is no debate among us – the integrity of Jerusalem and the continuation of its cultivation and consolidation as Israel’s capital. I said so yesterday and will repeat it today: There are no two Jerusalems. There is only one. Jerusalem is not subject to compromise. It was ours, will be ours, is ours and so it will remain for ever and always.”
Amen.
It has been a long time since I substantially agreed with a Caroline Glick column but she hits all the high notes in her Friday column at the Jerusalem Post.
Why has President Barak Obama decided to foment a crisis in US relations with Israel?
Some commentators have claimed that it is Israel’s fault. As they tell it, the news that Israel has not banned Jewish construction in Jerusalem – after repeatedly refusing to ban such construction – drove Obama into a fit of uncontrolled rage from which he has yet to recover.
While popular, this claim makes no sense. Obama didn’t come to be called “No drama Obama” for nothing. It is not credible to argue that Jerusalem’s local planning board’s decision to approve the construction of 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo drove cool Obama into a fit of wild rage at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Obama himself claims that he has launched a political war against Israel in the interest of promoting peace. But this claim, too, does not stand up to scrutiny. On Friday, Obama ordered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to present Netanyahu with a four-part ultimatum.
While I can quibble with some details I agree in substance – including the track Bibi should take. It will be interesting to what Bibi says during his speech at the AIPAC conference and whether he’ll follow Glick’s advise and make his case directly. But the bottom-line is the American Cossack is seeking to throw Israel under the Arab bus in the hopes of wooing the love and respect of the Arab world. Its a no-win strategy because the American government cannot beg, plead, grovel enough to satisfy insatiable appetite of the Arab-Iranian world. No amount of pleading or bribing will win it love, respect or significant influence.
This Obama Administration cannot seem to grasp is simply this; the American ideals of freedom, government and individual rights puts it directly in opposition to and potentially poses a threat to the very governments it is attempting to woo. It has nothing to do with a Jews building 1,600 homes in a Jewish area of Jerusalem which causes the Taliban or the ‘resistance’ group of the day to seek out and kill coalition or American forces. The Iranian government does not oppress its people because a Jew prays at the Cave of the Patriarchs or davens at the HaKotel. Furthermore, giving in to the rabid anti-Semitic government’s of the Middle East will not bring peace closer between the Israelis and Palestinians but will embolden the Palestinians to greater acts of violence.
Since news of the ‘current row’ between US officials and the Israeli government became public knowledge – what has happened since? The Palestinian escalate their attacks against Israelis and regular kassam attacks have resumed from the Gaza Strip. I suggest we call this the Obama Intifada.
