This letter was published on Friday, May 14, 2010 in the Waterbury Republican-American.
Wednesday was the 28th of Iyar on the Hebrew calendar and marked Yom Yerushalayim, the anniversary of the day in 1967 when Jerusalem was reunited after 19 years.
When Vice President Biden was a senator, he sponsored the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, stating it was the policy of the United States that "Jerusalem should remain an undivided city" and "Jerusalem should be recognized as Israel's capital."
In 2007, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was a senator, she issued a position paper in which she asserted "Israel's right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, must never be questioned." In 2008, when President Obama was a senator, he insisted Jerusalem will remain Israel's capital, "and it must remain undivided."
From 1948 to 1967 when parts of Jerusalem were occupied by Jordan, Judaism's holiest places were closed to Jews. Since then, the holy sites have been open to all, with the exception of Jews being barred from pray ing on the Temple Mount, which the Israeli government has allowed the Muslim Waqf to administer.
On Yom Yerushalayim, we celebrated the way Jerusalem has prospered and been open to all as Israel's capital, and call upon our country's leaders to adhere to the policies they so wisely advocated as senators and incorporated into law in the Jerusalem Embassy Act.
Alan H. Stein
Waterbury
The writer is president of PRIMER-Connecticut (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting; www.primerct.org).
1 comment:
The war against the Jews has been waged by our State Department for over 80 years. Back in the late '70's when Hodding Carter sneered from his podium that Jewish Settlements in Judea/Samaria were "illegal", my Hillel Rabbi at the time warned us that this had repercussions for us beyond Israel. That sad prediction is slowly becoming evident.
Someone who says: "You can't build a home here because you're Jewish" is anti-Semitic. It doesn't matter whether that home is in Amman or Hebron. Just because a country has a sovereign right to restrict the rights of Jews, doesn't make their policies any less anti-Semitic.
In spite of this, our State Department routinely embraces such policies without public protest. The mere fact that certain portions of the old Palestine Mandate are disputed between warring parties does NOT mean our State Department should embrace an anti-Semitic policy.
The time has long past for American Jews to confront our government about this.
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