Laying claim to Jerusalem Part II

by Daryl Hedding

This is a follow up to my blog about the mystery that is Jerusalem and the struggle that still rages over its sovereignty. As if to prove the point I made about President Obama laying a foundation upon which Israel's claim to sole sovereignty is denied, his administration has now been found to have asked Israel not to build apartments in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

There are numerous problems with this development.

The primary issue goes back to Israel's sovereignty. What's apparent is that Obama, like so many other Presidents before him, lusts after the Holy Grail of world peace; reconciliation between Israel and the Arabs. What's frightening is that he's decided Israel's natural expansion in the land is the greatest impediment to that peace being achieved. On the one hand, it's confirmation of the fact that Israel's contribution to this conflict has little to do with its military endeavors, and a lot more to do with the outrage and violence that is produced on the part of the Arabs as a result of Israel's very existance on the land. On the other hand, it shows a complete lack of impartiality, and even a dangerous tendency to support the notion that Palestinian areas should be Judenrein.

In this particular case, the land in question was in fact purchased by an American Jew in 1985, and is currently abandoned. It was not annexed, stolen, nationalized or assumed control of by any method other than in a legal manner as exercised in most parts of the world where exists the rule of law. Unfortunately, for a President who believes that Israel's right to exist flows from the horror of the Holocaust, it is not surprising that a different standard is applied to the Jew when seeking to operate as any other citizen in the world.

It is my belief that the American administration is working hard to ensure that the final peace deal does not fail. To do that, they have decided that Israel must understand that their claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem is not only under contention, but is ultimately to be denied. To put it another way, the issue of Jerusalem, which was always a final status item, has already been decided upon by Obama, and now Israel only has to submit and the Holy Grail will be securely within his grasp.

Netanyahu must be commended for standing firm under the mounting pressure. There's much at stake. After all, either Jews have a right to exist in the land of their forefathers or they are just refugees displaced after the great and many evils of World War II.