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Sunday, January 22, 2017

Here They Go Again

The mainstream media is out again with yet another misleading story about "settlements" in Israel.  This time, the purveyor of the bogus story is Reuters.  In an article today about whether or not President Trump will shift the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Reuters reports that "Israeli authorities" granted permits for the building of over 500 residences in "settlements" in Jerusalem.  That sounds ominous, doesn't it?

Here's what actually happened today.  The city of Jerusalem building department granted building permits for about 500 homes/apartments within the city of Jerusalem.  About a third of the units are in a section of the city which is the northern terminus of the Jerusalem light rail line, the largest mass transit line in the city.  The rest are in areas that put them closer to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, than the majority of the people living in Jerusalem.  So let's be clear.  The city government authorizes homes and apartments within the city limits and the morons at Reuters call these new homes "settlements".

It's also important to understand that we don't know who the residents of these new homes will be.  It's more likely than not that they will be Jewish Israelis rather than Muslim residents, but nothing on this has been settled.  The problem that Reuters and the ever so judgmental diplomatic world has is that these buildings are on land that was part of Jordan prior to 1967.  Clearly, it cannot be that for the last fifty years no new construction could be allowed in Jerusalem, but that is the basic position of the "international community".  Indeed, former president Obama locked this view in when he engineered the passage of a UN resolution so declaring about a month ago. 

I wonder when the UN will pass a resolution declaring all new construction in Oklahoma illegal.  Remember, until Oklahoma was opened to settlement in the late 19th century, it was "Indian Territory".  We cannot expect the world to accept that change, can we? 

And let's not forget that prior to World War I, Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire) ruled Jerusalem.  Shouldn't the Turks be the only ones allowed to approve buildings?

And then there's the crusaders.  The Kingdom of Jerusalem was in control in the twelfth century or so.  Should we have them control who lives in the city?  And how about the Saracens, the Romans, the Macedonians and the Jewish kingdoms of three thousand years ago.  Actually, if we go back to those Jewish kingdoms, that may solve the entire problem.  After all, it was a Jewish kingdom for about 1000 years in the period before Christ, and now it is a Jewish state.  The world should accept the original inhabitants as being in charge.  Isn't that good liberal orthodoxy?

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