So why does Abbas stubbornly persist in his self-defeating position? In an interview with Israeli television Sunday night, he offered a remarkably candid explanation: "When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped," he said. "If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?"
The statement confirmed something that many Mideast watchers have suspected for a long time: that the settlement impasse originated not with Netanyahu or Abbas, but with Obama -- who by insisting on an Israeli freeze has created a near-insuperable obstacle to the peace process he is trying to promote. [emphasis added]
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| Efraim Inbar |
No Israeli government will survive or support any concessions made in Jerusalem and it is time for the U.S. and the international community to recognize this.
Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters. We are moving forward. And don't confuse the people please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight. And if you don't understand, maybe you'll confuse it to the people.
Lieutenant General Honore addressing reporters about New Orleans evacuation plan for Hurricane Rita
1) Jerusalem the panoramic
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has a remarkable website devoted to Jerusalem centering around an annotated panoramic photograph of Jerusalem. (h/t Elder of Ziyon)
Of particular interest is a project titled, Jerusalem in International Diplomacy, by Dr. Dore Gold. The executive summary is here:
There is, sadly, a huge divide between the Obama administration’s position and that of the government of Israel with regard to Jerusalem.
For thousands of years, at the end of the Passover Seder as well as at the end of Yom Kippur, Jews around the world conclude their holiday by reciting, “Next Year in Jerusalem.”
To Jews, Jerusalem is the holiest city, and has the holiest site, the Temple Mount, which includes the Western Wall. Jews praying outside of Jerusalem face toward Jerusalem. When Israel became a state more than 60 years ago, Jerusalem, though it was divided at the time and the Western Wall was in Jordanian hands, was declared Israel’s capital.
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case brought by an American Jewish family, the Zivotofskys, whose child was born in West Jerusalem in 2002. The Obama administration, following the Bush administration’s policy, opposed listing “Jerusalem, Israel” as the birthplace on the child’s American passport — despite a U.S. law requiring such a listing.
By: Yedidya Atlas
In 2008, then Presidential candidate Barack Obama addressed the annual AIPAC conference in Washington, DC. He received tumultuous applause for his declaration that he would not allow Iran to acquire nuclear arms, and that Jerusalem would remain the undivided capital of Israel.
Given his latest AIPAC performance and the usual next day equivocations, not to mention his administration’s machinations for the past three years on dragging out and limiting the effectiveness of those “crippling sanctions” while pressing Israel not to attack Iran, even if necessary, Mr. Obama’s credibility on Jerusalem can also be called into question.
President Obama is certainly consistently inconsistent. In 2008 he equivocated on Jerusalem the next day by saying whether or not Jerusalem remains undivided is “going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues.” In his now infamous May 19, 2011 policy speech at the State Department he merely said of the two “wrenching and emotional issues remaining” to negotiate “the future of Jerusalem” was one.
Hence, the Obama administration’s stance on Jerusalem is that at the very least, the Muslim claims to Jerusalem have equal validity to that of the Jewish State which clearly has no right to self-determine its own undivided eternal capital. In brief, Mr. Obama & Co. have bought into the Islamic Big Lie on Jerusalem.
Read the whole thing.
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case brought by an American citizen born in Jerusalem. US citizen Menachem Zivotofsky was born in Jerusalem in 2002. The US State Department has refused to list "Israel" as his place of birth on his passport and would only write "Jerusalem" instead. This is despite the fact that in 2002 Congress instructed the State Department to "record the place of birth as Israel" in passports of American children born in Jerusalem if their parents request it.The full brief for the petitioner is available online.
The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court not to hear the case. The Supreme Court justices instead not only agreed to hear the case, but also directed the two sides to address the broad question of whether the law "impermissibly infringes the president's power to recognize foreign sovereigns."
