Newt Gingrich back when he was Speaker of the US House of Representatives in 1997, and mirroring a talking point that was repeated endlessly at the time --
Let me be clear: Har Homa is not, as the media attempt to insist, a ``settlement.'' It is a Jewish neighborhood in the city Israel has chosen as her capital.
Bibi Netanyahu, 2 days ago, deciding that there was a voting bloc he'd only get by telling the truth --
"I thought we had to protect the southern gateway to Jerusalem by building here [Har Homa]," Netanyahu said, with a construction site behind the podium as his backdrop. "There was huge objection, because this neighborhood is in a location which prevents the Palestinian (territorial) contiguity."
Note how Har Homa -- a settlement that Bibi launched -- has gone from being pitched as an organic part of Jerusalem to acknowledgement as all along being a strategic settlement to control access to the city and prevent a contiguous Palestinian state.
With much of Irish America gathered in Washington DC to hail their own brilliant Peace Process, it's not looking too good for its Arab-Israeli twin. The recommendation of this blog as a way forward against a new Bibi Unbound administration would be for the Palestinian territories and its external partners to focus very specifically on what's been happening to Jerusalem in the last two decades. Remember the benchmark here would be that the city should be run, as is sometimes proposed, under international control. But Israel's policies and demography are sending the holy city in a very different direction.
Let me be clear: Har Homa is not, as the media attempt to insist, a ``settlement.'' It is a Jewish neighborhood in the city Israel has chosen as her capital.
Bibi Netanyahu, 2 days ago, deciding that there was a voting bloc he'd only get by telling the truth --
"I thought we had to protect the southern gateway to Jerusalem by building here [Har Homa]," Netanyahu said, with a construction site behind the podium as his backdrop. "There was huge objection, because this neighborhood is in a location which prevents the Palestinian (territorial) contiguity."
Note how Har Homa -- a settlement that Bibi launched -- has gone from being pitched as an organic part of Jerusalem to acknowledgement as all along being a strategic settlement to control access to the city and prevent a contiguous Palestinian state.
With much of Irish America gathered in Washington DC to hail their own brilliant Peace Process, it's not looking too good for its Arab-Israeli twin. The recommendation of this blog as a way forward against a new Bibi Unbound administration would be for the Palestinian territories and its external partners to focus very specifically on what's been happening to Jerusalem in the last two decades. Remember the benchmark here would be that the city should be run, as is sometimes proposed, under international control. But Israel's policies and demography are sending the holy city in a very different direction.
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