By Ted Belman
Haaretz says Benjamin Netanyahu is already reconciled to a divided Jerusalem.
Five Jerusalem neighborhoods remained on the other side of the fence — the Shoafat refugee camp, the neighborhoods of Ras Khamis, Ras Shehadeh, Hashalom neighborhood and Kafr Akeb — that are homes to tens of thousands, between one-quarter and one-third of all Palestinian residents of the city. They were left in a no-man’s land in which the Israeli authorities, chief among them the municipality and the police, do not set foot. Anarchy reigns, and the only Israelis who enter do so in armored jeeps and wearing full body armor. Even the most basic services are not provided to this area, from regular running water and garbage collection to law enforcement.
These neighborhoods were annexed after the ’67 War. Many years later when Sharon built the fence he left them on the east side. These areas should be unannexed and treated as Area B or A. That would remove about 100,000 Arabs from Jerusalem.
But the problem of Jerusalem is worse than that. Bibi, as we know, succumbed to Obama’s pressure five years ago and instituted a freeze on Jewish construction on the annexed territories west of the fence. Bennett and Ariel tried to get Bibi to lift the freeze and in the end went along with it rather than to bring the government down. This may well have been because they were also intimidated by the threats.
Aryeh King recently went public with a major expose of Netanyahu’s actions, supported by Birkat, to ensure the division of the City which went beyond simply freezing construction.
HAARETZ ends by saying:
Jerusalem is not united and will not be united anytime in the foreseeable future, and this happened on the watch of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The only question remaining is when he will finally decide to tell that to the Israeli public.
The truth of the matter is that in Bib’s calculus, if he is going to succumb to a two-state deal, he will want to jettison the Arab neighborhoods on both side of the fence as part of the deal. Besides we just want the holy basin including the Old City. The rest of the Arab neighborhoods can and should be returned.
The only reason to have annexed these lands was to ensure that it would help keep Jerusalem undivided and part of Israel. The thinking being that the new Arab residents would become citizens (only 10 to 15% did) and thus Jerusalem would be accepted as part of Israel.
Unfortunately it hasn’t worked that way.
The Peres dogs are out. Diskin, following the well known Gillon, both “former” parts of the nefarious G SS, organized to be the home of the infamous “Jewish Sektion”. are gnashing at the teeth and barking aloud against one and all not in their collapsing treason club. The renegades system is falling apart by the hour with virtually all of Livni’s gangsters having quit politics in one week or so.
A couple of words about the “Jewish Sektion” part of the PM run G SS. General Security Services, AKA SHABAK.
It is a dark, inimical unit tailored to be a replica of the infamous “YevSektziah” of the USSR Beria era. The G SS actually plants agent provocateurs, entrap and fabricate files. And more…and worse. It is very much suspected.
Jerusalem united. Israel is a Jewish state and Jerusalem is its capital.
It is not a Palestinian enclave.
Livni’s remaining associate is “binocular” Peretz. All the rest left that item.
I do not now doubt that or ever before did I doubt that Netanyahu will betray our Heritage including in Jerusalem and Temple Mount included. Netanyahu is in sync with Peres, Beilin, Sharon, Barak, Olmert, Livni and Lapid, etc. He selected Barak as his Minister of Defense. Worked hand on hand with Sharon’s disengagement, chose Livni as his Minister of justice and chief negotiator and Lapid nothing less than Finances Minister. Only the mentally impaired Israeli voters, conditioned for decades to vote for the same renegades could miss the facts.
Netanyahu is far from being a highly respected leader, it is just that the perverse combina has prevented new people of quality to go up in the ranks.
The rest has been said many times before.