Ira Glunts writes:
The public disagreement between Israel and the U.S. over continued settlement expansion
in the West Bank and Jerusalem has heated up considerably today. At a cabinet meeting on
Sunday, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly rejected the Obama administration's request for a
halt to construction of a planned settlement in Sheik Jarrah, located in Israeli occupied
East Jerusalem.
The disputed site is owned by settlement supporter Irving Moskowitz, a wealthy American doctor who
bought the property in 1985. It is the present site of the Shepherd Hotel and was once the
residence of the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. The location borders on a
Palestinian historic district which was described at the Israeli Channel 1 web site as a
"time bomb since 1985." The municipality of Jerusalem has prevented the
development of the site because of Palestinian sensibilities until recently.
The request to refrain from building on the property was delivered to Israeli
Ambassador Michael Oren by State Department officials within the last few days. According
to Ha'aretz, Oren told the Americans that
Jerusalem is no different from any other part of his country and that Israel would not
accede to their demand.
In his speech to the cabinet , Netanyahu declared, "Jerusalem is united, it is the
capital of the Jewish people, and its sovereignty is not open to debate." He further
added that any Jew has the right to build anywhere in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister's
statement received support from opposition member of parliament Yoel Hasoon (Kadima), who
said,"the American request to refrain from building in Jerusalem is not legitimate.
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and the Jewish people, and is not a
settlement…."
Further evidence that Israel and the United States are far from resolving settlement
expansion dispute was the postponement of this
week's schedule meeting between Special Envoy George Mitchell and Defense Minister
Ehud Barak. There has been no official confirmation of when the next meeting between the
two will occur.
Weiss adds:
Isn't this the whole enchilada? Isn't this what Obama promised in the Cairo speech, a shared Jerusalem? Where does Obama's vision go from here?
Note that Moskowitz is an old Netanyahu friend who reportedly pressed him into opening the Hasmonean tunnels in the Old City back in the 90s, leading to Palestinian riots. Moskowitz funded David Wurmser, one of the visionaries of the Bush Administration, while he was at the American Enterprise Institute pushing for a war with Iraq, which, lo, came to pass. The peace process, quoth Moskowitz, is "a slide toward concessions, surrender and Israeli suicide."
