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Posts Tagged ‘Ramat Shlomo’

“East Jerusalem” and Progressive Antisemitism

by Delectable ( 292 Comments › )
Filed under Anti-semitism, Israel, Judaism, Leftist-Islamic Alliance, Progressives at March 23rd, 2010 - 8:00 am

Please read this.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who has previously been the keynote speaker at ISNA (the Islamic Society of North America, an unindicted co-conspirator of the Holy Land Trial Foundation), said that Obama is right to call for the building freeze in ‘East Jerusalem.’ This is nothing less than a war on the good from someone who has previously shown his willingness to collaborate with Israel’s (and the U.S.’s) enemies, ala J Street. Actually, Rabbi Yoffie was a featured speaker at J Street’s “Annual Gala.” (quite the coincidence, no?) He spoke alongside the open jihadist, Salam al-Marayati, as well as Iran’s lobbyist, Trita Parsi. And of course, J Street 100% agrees with Rabbi Yoffie that Israel should stop building (for Jews only, of course) in “East Jerusalem,” obviously with the ultimate intent on giving up that land (and thus cleansing 700,000 Jews from their homes) for a future ‘Palestinian state.’

But I digress.

Israel is simply building homes, and in response the jihadists of Fatah and Hamas are building rockets and indoctrinating their people to hate – and yet, according to these progressives, it is Israel that should be capitulating. This point has been rammed home yet again by Hillary Clinton, when she equated building homes in Israel’s holiest city (and capitol!) with hate indoctrination and terrorism in her AIPAC speech yesterday. (big shock here – J Street applauded Hillary’s speech)

Three points on this are often unacknowledged.

1. Ramat Shlomo – the housing units at issue (which caused the diplomatic ‘crisis’) – are in North Jerusalem, not East Jerusalem. Thus, this is saying that Jews have no right to build anywhere in Jerusalem. (and implicitly, anywhere in Israel?)

2. Technically, Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital are in “East Jerusalem.” Should those institutions be dismantled? Why not, according to progressive reasoning? There is a false myth that all of ‘East Jerusalem’ was Arab in 1949. Totally untrue, as evidenced by the existence of Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital! Moreover, the 1949 borders of Israel are literally the lines where the fighting stopped. That’s it. I would like ‘Rabbi’ Eric Yoffie and J Street to explain why and how those particular lines are sacrosanct.

3. Arabs are able to build anywhere they want in Jerusalem, and do. The Israeli ‘building inspectors’ have dedicated themselves to tearing down Jewish, not Arab, illegal building. Source.

I reject the implicitly racist/antisemitic notion that Jews are not allowed to build in their holiest city, but Arabs can live anywhere they want.

Change! Obama’s Policy of Distancing Israel & Rehabilitating Islam’s Global Image

by WrathofG-d ( 82 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Gaza, Iran, Islamic Terrorism, Islamists, Israel, Leftist-Islamic Alliance, Middle East, Palestinians, Politics, Progressives, Religion at March 18th, 2010 - 4:00 pm

Much ado has been made about the Obama Administration’s most recent manufactured spat and over-reaction to Israel’s announcement that it was going to go forward with a zoning decision in the Israeli neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo.

President Biden accused [Israel] of “endangering US lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Despite Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s abject apology, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused him of “insulting” the US. Obama’s chief political adviser David Axelrod even claimed that the Israeli government was deliberately undermining peace talks.

All of this, despite the fact that this announcement (not actual building mind you)  involved no breach of undertaking between the two countries.

…the Obama administration had previously publicly praised the Israeli government for making a “major concession” by imposing a settlement freeze which explicitly excluded Jerusalem.

So what gives? Despite the American public’s reaction of shock to this most recent kerfuffle, this treatment of America’s most reliable, and steadfast ally by the Obama Administration is not unique.

These hostile outbursts must be viewed in the context of the fact that despite strong ongoing support for Israel by the American people, the US-Israel relationship has been on a downward spiral since the election of the new administration. Former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy attributes this to Obama’s determination to rehabilitate Islam’s global tarnished image.

Yet his strategy of “engaging” Islamic rogue states has been disastrous. The effort to prevent the nuclearization of Iran by appeasing the Iranian tyrants backfired with the ayatollahs literally mocking the US. The response of Syrian President Bashar Assad to US groveling and the appointment of an ambassador to Damascus, was to host a summit with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah and ridicule the US demand that he curtail his relationship with Iran. President Obama did not consider this “insulting,” prompting the editor of the Lebanese The Daily Star to say that “the Obama administration these days provokes little confidence in its allies and even less fear in its adversaries.”

The Arab League refuses to modify its hard-line against Israel. It insists that Israel unconditionally accept the Saudi peace plan, a full retreat to the ‘67 borders and the implementation of the Arab right of return which would signal an end to Jewish sovereignty in the region.

THERE ARE now ominous signals that to obviate their failures, White House strategists are cynically distancing themselves from us in order to curry popularity by capitalizing on the anti-Israeli hatred which has engulfed the world.

Despite continuously incanting the mantra that it remains committed to the alliance with Israel, the White House is not behaving in an even-handed manner. Obama does not disguise his animosity and repeatedly humiliates [Israel’s] prime minister.
The administration “condemns” us for building homes, not in densely Arab populated areas of Jerusalem but in Jewish suburbs like Gilo and most recently Ramat Shlomo which most of us regard as Israel no less than Tel Aviv.

Instead of condemning the brutal Palestinian murderer of an Israeli civilian in December, the US requested “clarification” after Israel apprehended the killers who the PA extolled as heroes.  They failed to block a UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli police for protecting worshippers at the Temple Mount from Arabs hurling stones at them.  They even condemned [Israel] for authorizing repairs on Jewish heritage sites over the Green Line.

In stark contrast, the US has not publicly reprimanded the PA on a single issue over the past twelve months. It is unconscionable that neither the White House nor the State Department conveyed a word of protest concerning the ongoing incitement and spate of ceremonies sanctifying the memory of the most degenerate suicide killers and mass murderers. Not even when our peace partners President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad personally partook in these ghoulish ceremonies. In fact, during Biden’s visit, the PA announced that they would postpone a ceremony to name a public square in Ramallah to honor Dalal Mughrabi, the female monster responsible for the abominable 1978 massacre in which 37 Israelis including 13 children were butchered. Nevertheless the ceremony took place and the PA TV interviewed Mughrabi’s sister who stated: “This is a day of glory and pride for the Palestinian people. We must unite, and our rifles must unite, against the enemy who steals our land.” The US failed to register a protest.

NETANYAHU HAS extended more concessions than any other Israeli leader. His government immediately agreed to negotiations with the Palestinians. In contrast, Abbas told The Washington Post that being confident that the US would ensure that the Palestinians obtained whatever they sought, he saw no benefit in negotiating with the Israelis. This scenario is now being realized.

{The Article. A Must Read}