I*Consult
The Obama administration is opposed to all Jewish building on the other side of the 1949 armistice line, despite previous understandings between the Obama Administration and Netanyahu government about the freeze not applying to Jerusalem construction. Not only is the American policy a reversal of the previous Administration's assurances to Israel on Jerusalem and "population centers," but it also goes against the original American policy adopted after the 1967 war, as explained by the American ambassador to the UN at the time, Arthur Goldberg.
Goldberg wrote in the New York Times on March 12, 1980, “[UN Security Council] Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate. I wanted to make clear that Jerusalem was a discrete matter, not linked to the West Bank. In a number of speeches at the U.N. in 1967, I repeatedly stated that the armistice lines fixed after 1948 were intended to be temporary. This, of course, was particularly true of Jerusalem. At no time in these many speeches did I refer to East Jerusalem as occupied territory.”
In the very near future, the city of Jerusalem planning board will approve the construction of a synagogue in Gilo, a neighborhood housing some 40,000 people in southern Jerusalem. View the proposed site of the Gilo synagogue on the accompanying satellite photo (click on the picture to enlarge), approximately a quarter of a mile away from the armistice line. And wonder what the big issue is.
For Jews around the world, Jerusalem is the big issue. The same way that the bowing toward Mecca is integral to the Muslim religion, so too is the rebuilding of Jerusalem integral to Judaism and to the Jewish soul. The oft-heard phrase "Next year in Jerusalem," is actually incomplete. Jews sing, "Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem -- Yerushalayim Habenewya."
Read Nathan Diament's The Heart and Soul of Israel in Politico for more on this theme.
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