Sunday, July 05, 2009

Obama's Move Against Jerusalem Gets Clearer

http://www.onejerusalem.org/2009/06/obamas-move-against-jerusalem.php

Top Obama advisors say time for Israel to surrender Jerusalem

A Washington-based think tank that is viewed as one of the primary sources of foreign policy advise for US President Barack Obama is recommending that Israel surrender control of Jerusalem to an international body.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) correctly determined that the issue of Jerusalem is the primarily obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

As such, in order to move forward with the land-for-peace process as a whole, CAP has suggested that a third party administer and police the city while both Israel and the Palestinians maintain their claims to sovereignty until an agreement can be reached.

CAP expects that agreement would take a very long time to reach, if ever, but that in the meantime the rest of the conflict could be concluded.

There are concerns in Israel that Obama will adopt the recommendation considering his close ties to CAP and his overriding determination to oversee an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement.
Bloomberg News reported that "CAP has been an incubator for liberal thought and helped build the [Democratic party] platform that triumphed in the 2008 campaign."

It was also noted that Obama adopted many of CAP's policy recommendations while he was still president-elect.

This week Obama's favorite think tank, The Center for American Progress, issued a report detailing Obama's determination to take Jerusalem from the State of Israel and the Jewish people.The study's premise is that the Old City of Jerusalem is a problem. This means that the State of Israel must give up control of the Old City. (It should be noted that reports of the Center of American Progress have repeatedly stated the thinking of the Obama Administration. One Jerusalem brought the Center's influence to public attention and it was the basis for our predictions that Obama would give a speech to the Muslim World and try to negotiate with Iran's mullahs.)

The Center's report on Jerusalem focuses on what entity should replace the State of Israel as the administrator of the Old City, i.e. The Temple Mount, Churches, etc. It does not entertain the idea that Israel should continue in this role. It does not acknowledge that since the State of Israel wrested control of the Old City it has been secure and open to all people. This reality was certainly not the case from 1948 to 1967 when Jewish population was forcefully ejected from the Old City and its synagogues and schools destroyed.

In other words, Obama begins with the premise that the current successful situation must be replaced to satisfy the Palestinians. The plan they highlight creates a third party administrator of the Old City. This, of course, will be a failed experiment. At best it will create a situation that the Old City will be the center of dispute and conflict. For one, Israeli security will be replaced by some international body: The Ant-Israel United Nations?

Obama's determination to bend over backward to satisfy the political whims of Israel's enemies is clear, disturbing, and dangerous. It must be stopped.

If you want to be part of saving Jerusalem from Obama we urge you to take a few minutes to bring this blog post to the attention of friends, relatives, and supporters of Israel. Urge them to sign the our petition to keep Jerusalem united under the State of Israel so they can stay informed about what is happening and they can participate in action items we will bring to your attention during the coming months. If you care about the future of Jewish controlled Jerusalem now is the time to get involved.

On a related note, for anyone who questions Obama's commitment to the Muslim world we bring to your attention his Administration's appointment of America's first State Department representative to the Muslim World. Read about it here.

Vote in our One Jerusalem poll on the Old City.

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http://www.onejerusalem.org/2009/07/harvard-picks-up-the-internati.php

[07.04.2009]
Harvard Picks Up The Internationalizing Of Jerusalem Theme

One Jerusalem has correctly identified policies of the Obama Administration in their developmental stages. During his transition period we predicted that Obama would adopt a policy of engaging the blood-thirsty Ayatollahs of Iran, we predicted that Obama would give a major address to the Muslim world, and we are now predicting that Obama will pressure Israel to either divide or internationalize Jerusalem.

Our success in predicting Obama policies before they occur is not the result of divine intervention or spies in the White House. It stems from careful study of the Obama inner circle and their allies in the policy making community. Last week we brought to your attention the recommendations on Jerusalem of Obama's favorite think tank. This week we are tracking the movement of the idea of Israel giving over sovereignty of Jerusalem to one of the Obama clans favorite academic institutions: Harvard University

In an essay filled with tortured reasoning a Harvard publication published a Professor Barnett's policy advice on breaking the diplomatic log jam between Israel and the Palestinians. In his piece Barnett acknowledges the absence of any serious opportunities for negotiations and he purposes that Israel simply turn the problem over to the United Nations. And he sees Israel agreeing to internationalizing Jerusalem under the auspices of the United Nations

Professor Efraim Inbar exposes the weakness of Barnett's case very effectively. He writes:

Michael Barnett is right in pointing out that the two-state paradigm cannot solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the two sides cannot reach an acceptable compromise. Without saying so explicitly, he realizes that this paradigm lost its appeal in part because the Palestinians have not been capable state-builders. Probably, this is why he suggests that the UN become the de facto ruler of the areas now in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and under Israeli military control.

This suggestion shows the great gulf between diagnosis and prognosis that even respected political scientists have problems bridging. The UN is a morally bankrupt institution with automatic majorities for the most ridiculous preferences of dictatorial Third World states. Moreover, for decades the UN has shown an entrenched anti-Israel bias, singling out Israel for every type of abuse. It was the UN that declared Zionism, the Jewish national movement, to be racist, and it is the UN that hosts anti-Semitic Durban-type conferences that annually adopt hundreds of anti-Israeli resolutions.

Finally, the UN is hardly an effective organization that can issue credible security assurances. The UN peacekeeping record is very flawed. In the Arab-Israeli arena, the UN forces have played a particularly dysfunctional role. Will they fight Hamas? The recommendation to place the security of Israelis in the hands of the blue helmets vastly overestimates what the UN can do, and shows disregard for the welfare of Israelis who face Palestinian hatred and terrorism.
Moreover, the belief that a UN trusteeship would bring law and order, prosperity, and political stability to the Palestinians is divorced from Middle East realities. The Palestinians are beleaguered by problems similar to those that haunt other Arab societies, such as in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Somalia. The UN is hardly the remedy for the emerging failed states in the Arab world. Neither UN administrators nor generous outside funding can save the Palestinians from their problems.

While exposing the weakness of Barnett's argument is important, it is even more important to understand that Obama's team is legitimizing these harmful to Israel policies through their allies. Once again, we urge you to take seriously the idea of stripping Jerusalem from the State of Israel. We are confident this idea will be part of a comprehensive peace plan the Obama Administration will try to impose this fall.

You can help stop this morally bankrupted policy by helping grow the One Jerusalem community by getting family and friends to sign our petition to keep Jerusalem united and free the way it is today. The bigger our community becomes the better we will be able to disseminate the truth about what is going on with Jerusalem. You can be sure Obama's media friends are not interested in telling our side of the story.

To all our American friends we wish you all a Happy Independence Day.
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http://www.onejerusalem.org/2009/06/obamas-move-against-jerusalem.php

[06.08.2009]
Jerusalem Is At The Heart of Zionism

Today, in a speech to a small group of Israel supporters, Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs, Moshe Yaalon repeated the words of a Palestinian leader who spoke approvingly of the two-state formula because once Israel gets out of Jerusalem "the Zionist idea will begin to collapse."

Throughout his address Yaalon emphasized that the Palestinians were not interested in peace with the Jewish State of Israel. He called for the abandonment of the failed policy of talking to Palestinian leaders and the adoption of what Prime Minister Netanyahu has called the bottom up approach.

Yaalon argued that Israel has no peace partner at this time. He noted that the Palestinian leadership teaches its youngsters to hate the State of Israel; its maps do not include the State of Israel; and it refers to Tel Aviv as a settlement founded in 1948. These leaders also refuse to recognize the free and independent Jewish State. He reminded the audience that recently the Palestinian leader Abu Mazen refused to call Israel a Jewish State.

Yaalon said that Israel should not be expected to help the Palestinians create a state (another Hamastan) that refuses to allow Jews (the way they cleansed Gaza of Jews). He said they must earn acceptance into the international community. This will require educational, political, economic, and security reform. So far they have only made progress on the policing side thanks to the American effort under General Dayton.

Yaalon, who is a retired Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, lamented the fact that the international community keeps rewarding the Palestinians with money even though they have done nothing to earn support from anyone. He noted that financing the Palestinian Authority is a case of poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in a poor country. This aid does not go to those who need it. It is pocketed by those who rule.

Yaalon made it clear that the Netanyahu government is breaking with the policy of dealing with the corrupt Palestinian leadership, that it will not allow a terror state to come into existence, and that it will support the Palestinians if they want economic and political reform.

We left Minister Yaalon as he began his journey to Washington, D.C. to tell the Obama Administration what he told us. With patriots like him, Israel is in good shape to fight the coming battles..

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