by Nadene Goldfoot and Victor Sharpe
Israel and Obama are not following the same set of facts.
Between 1949 and 1967 Jordan occupied Eastern Jerusalem and forcibly expelled all the Jews FROM THE OLD CITY.
In this place was the City of David, the Temple Mount and Western Wall, Hebrew U and the original Hadassah Hospital which sits on Mt. Scopus-which in eastern Jerusalem. ONLY MOUNT SCOPUS WAS WITHIN JORDANIAN OCCUPIED TERRITORY AND ISRAELI CONVOYS HAD TO PASS THROUGH ARAB CHECKPOINTS TO GO THERE AND BACK.
Before 1865 all of the Jerusalemites lived in the Old City which would be considered today as part of the eastern part of the city. Both Jews and Arabs began to build in new areas later. SINCE 1841 Jews formed the largest community in Jerusalem.
Israel LIBERATED East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 War and immediately annexed it. This was not recognized internationally. Now they have announced building 1,600 units in the suburb of Ramat Shlomo which is located north of Jerusalem and not in East Jerusalem. It is already a community of 16,000 Orthodox Jews and expected to stay a part of Israel’s capital in any peace agreement. This is not disrupting the lives of Palestinian Arabs. Israel recently announced that 20 new Jewish homes will be built in Jerusalem. This angered President Obama though it seems he was intent on manufacturing a fraudulent dispute.
Netanyahu reminded Obama that this is not a change in Israeli policy, which is how Obama chose to view it. The Palestinians want to divide Jerusalem and create for the first time in history an Arab capital in the Holy city. The Obama administration has lurched alarmingly towards the Palestinian Arabs to the extent that it is now parroting the Arab claims that Jews have no right to the city – even though it has been a Jewish capital for 3,000 years since King David moved from Hebron and made it his capital city. Evidently the USA could annex parts of Mexico but Israel cannot exist in every part of its ancient capital. What kind of international law allows for such discrimination and assault against 3,000 years of Jewish history?
About 300,000 Israelis live in western suburbs of Jerusalem and about 200,000 more live in areas north, south and east, which were liberated from Jordanian occupation and which the Palestinian Authority now demands for itself.
When Prime Minister Ehud Barak was Prime Minister during President Clinton’s administration, he offered to create a Palestinian state in 97% of Judea and Samaria, the so-called West Bank as well as give away east-Jerusalem to the Arabs. The Palestinians rejected that offer. Two years ago, a similar IMMENSE CONCESSION WAS also rejected PROVING THAT THE Arabs do not want a state alongside Israel but a state instead of Israel. The Jewish state has continually offered breathtaking compromises and concession in the interest of peace only to receive endless rejections.
Israel withdrew completely from Gaza and other places but it has brought the opposite of peace. Israel has suffered 1,000 citizens killed since it accepted the Oslo ‘peace’ accords, which is now called the Oslo War.
After Gaza, it is apparent that Israel can expect nothing other than Islamic ‘holy’ war. Meanwhile, the US Administration has not once told the Palestinians that they must cease terrorism, stop inculcating their children with hate and end their campaign of demonization of the embattled Jewish state. Instead, the Obama administration is doing one thing only: savagely pressuring Israel.
I find it completely outrageous that the Obama Administration is so biased against its greatest ally, Israel or that the Palestinians have the impression that they need only to let Obama do their dirty work for them. Israel is busy developing its own capital while the Arab and Muslim world wants to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem of its Jewish patrimony and destroy every vestige of historical and spiritual Jewish life in the eternal Jewish capital city.
Reference: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100326/ap_on_re_mii_ea/ml_israel_palestinians/print 3/26/10Mitchell Bard M&F #357Britannica Blog: Open Letter from Bibi to Barack by Mitchell Bard
Victor Sharpe
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