Olmert to OU: Jerusalem Will Remain United
(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office has written the Orthodox Union (OU) that Jerusalem will remain united and that “the issue of Jerusalem is currently not under negotiations with the Palestinians.” However, the letter written by the Prime Minister’s Diaspora Affairs advisor Rachael Risby-Raz, did not define Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Olmert this week told the Knesset that he questions whether Arab neighborhoods on the edge of the city need to be part of the capital. Vice Prime Minister Chaim Ramon, his senior advisor on negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), has publicly outlined a program for dividing up the capital with a proposed new Arab state that would establish its capital in Jerusalem.
Risby-Raz wrote in response to an OU plea to the Prime Minister that he not divide the city. However, the OU said her response was not explicit enough concerning his commitments.
Lieberman Excludes City of David from Dispensable Arab N’bhoods
Peres: No intention to divide Jerusalem
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‘Only thing the State of Israel must ensure is a Jewish majority in Jerusalem,’ President says during visit to Safed. ‘In any case it is clear that the holy sites must remain under our control‘
Paul Eidelberg suggest we each contact MK Benjamin Netanyahu* and urge him to issue the following statement:
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“No Likud-led government will be bound by any agreement issuing from the forthcoming Annapolis Conference, or from any conference, that compromises the security of the Jewish State of Israel.”
How about it.
Peres’ statement that holy sites must remain under Israeli control is more platitude then reality. The most holy and significant site, the Temple Mount is under partial control of the Muslim Waqf which has contrary to the limits of its control engaged over the years in illegal excavations that have deliberately sought to destroy archeological evidence of Israel’s ancient presence on that site.
The Israeli government has done little or nothing about sanctioning the Muslim Waqf for its wrongdoing and preventing it from doing it again and again.
Immediately after the 1967 war, as an act to appease Arabs and encourage them to begin negotiating real peace, Israel gave some limited control of the Temple Mount to the Muslim Waqf. That gesture failed to bring about peace negotiations and instead Israel has had only more war and more terrorism against innocent Israelis.
If Israel truly wishes to have control over her holy sites, Israel can start first by kicking the Muslim Waqf out of the Temple mount and establishing full control.
Just what would Shimon Peres say to putting that kind of clarity into his words that
Can anyone tell me what a”Palestinian” is? I have no idea except it was sort of a Roman term.