I have a cure for this dispute. Convert all the Arabs to the religions that existed before Islam. Then they can stop this religious war and return it to a tribal war. Much simpler to contain.
Israel's Right to Build in Its CapitalAn Israeli plan to build 20 housing units in the Shepherd Hotel compound in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem has added a new dimension to an already complex dispute between the Obama administration and Israel over continued construction in eastern Jerusalem.1 Washington is insisting that Israel freeze all building in Sheikh Jarrah, as it occasionally has done in the past regarding other areas in the eastern part of the city. Israel, however, refuses to waive the Jewish people's historical and legal right to live in all parts of Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel.2 In eastern Jerusalem, i.e., north, south and east of the city's 1967 borders, there are today some 200,000 Jews and 270,000 Arabs living in a mosaic of intertwined neighborhoods.3
Disagreements between the U.S. and Israel over building in eastern Jerusalem are not new. In the 1970s, the U.S. expressed dissatisfaction with the construction of the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood, and in the 1990s it opposed the construction of a large neighborhood on Har Homa and a smaller one in Ma'ale Hazeitim near Ras el-Amud.
This time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel's right to continue building in its capital is not a matter for negotiation, and is separate from the debate with the U.S. about the extent of building in the West Bank.4 On June 22, 2009, State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly had stated, in answer to a question, that the Obama administration's demand that all settlement activity - including natural growth - come to a halt also applied to Jerusalem neighborhoods over the 1949 armistice line.5
Leave a comment