Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Natural Growth - Freeze - The Iroquois?

David Bedein scores by quoting Danny Seaman:

Ms. Clinton’s press spokesman was asked if President Obama’s demand to halt expansion of “West Bank Jewish communities” included a demand to stop expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

The answer was affirmative. The U.S. State Department demands that Israel limit Jewish growth in these areas of Jerusalem, “whose status remains to be determined” in negotiations.

Israeli Government Press Director Daniel Seamen



reacted to this Obama administration statement by saying: “I have to admire the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Marty Peretz at TNR:

"Both Obama and secretary Clinton muddled the whole settlement problem by not making distinctions. Not that I think distinctions resolve the matter. But there are areas of Jerusalem seized during the Six Day War (started in the city, just in case the president hasn't internalized the fact, by Jordan) that have been Jewish Jerusalem neighborhoods virtually ever since. A settlement freeze destroys every natural process in demography. This is really chutzpah.

Some really nice left-wing people live in these areas, and many of them are quite willing to take enormous concessions upon Israel. What they are not willing to do is leave their homes and break up communities that probably include 150,000 of the capitol's Jewish population of half a million. In fact, this is one of those cases in which hyperbole is reasonable: this will not happen until hell freezes over."