Posted on 05/13/2007 1:44:12 PM PDT by Esther Ruth
25 Iyar 5767, May 13, '07
Published: 05/13/07, 11:09 PM
After 40 Years, U.S. Avoids Jerusalem Reunification Day
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(IsraelNN.com) The United States will avoid Jerusalem Unification Day festivities this week despite a 12-year-old Congressional bill calling for the American embassy to be located in the capital. Since then, every President has exercised a waiver in the bill allowing the move to be deferred for a renewable period of six months.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni insisted that the "connection between Israel and Jerusalem is inseparable" despite the boycott by the U.S. and most of the international community. Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski went further and declared, "Anyone who doesn't recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel does not recognize the State of Israel." Anyone who doesn't recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel does not recognize the State of Israel.
American officials, including former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, have stated that moving the embassy is not likely to happen until there is a final peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The U.S. did not issue an official statement explaining why the current Ambassador, Richard Jones will not be attending the ceremonies, but Ambassador Dr. Harald Kindermann from Germany, which heads the European Union (EU) this year, specifically said his country will not participate because of Arab claims of sovereignty over eastern Jerusalem, which includes the Old City.
The Foreign Ministry said Sunday it is "unhappy and disappointed that some missions have announced they were not coming" to the festivities but added that officials from several embassies will attend.
Two American lawmakers have launched an effort to put a stop to the continuing deferral of the Congressional bill to move the embassy from Tel Aviv. Republican House of Representatives members Joe Wilson and Mike Pence recently introduced a resolution stating that Jerusalem "must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected as they have been by Israel during the past 40 years." Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected as they have been by Israel during the past 40 years.
The new resolution "strongly urges" American President George W. Bush to stop exercising the waiver to delay the move of the embassy. It also calls on him and American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "repeatedly affirm publicly, as a matter of United States policy, that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel."
The congressmen also noted that the 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act directs the Secretary of State that the birth of any U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem should be recorded as "Jerusalem, Israel" upon the request of the citizen or his or her guardian.
That requirement has never been implemented, and the city is listed without the designation of being in Israel.
Israel officially incorporated all of Jerusalem into the municipality in 1980, a move that caused virtually all of the embassies that had been located in Jerusalem to move away. The last holdouts were El Salvador and Cost Rica, which pulled out several months ago.
They should just do it now while “Hate America” is popular. Why wait until a peace agreement (which will never happen anyway) and then move and tick everyone off all over again?
Egypt doesn’t claim to be a high-tech, advanced economy.
Israel does - yet, it apparently still needs a $10 billion handout from the American taxpayers every year.
Tel-Aviv
Then where the US has it’s embassy is a seperate issue.
WWHD?
What would Hillary do, if, God Forbid, she got back in the White House?.
I wonder more and more every day exactly what the State Defartment does to help this country. Talk about a terrible waste of our tax dollars.
but the administration has no problem recognizing 40 year veteran terrorists. even serves them rice....maybe when OBL turns old and learns that lying about his intentions is a more affective way to achieve his on-going holy war's goals than issuing threatening videos, he will be recognized too..
“Occupied by whom”? Would they prefer to give it back to the Arab/palestinkian terrorists?
I see a troll alert - obviously you are an anti-Semite who does not believe in the holiness of Jerusalem the Golden.
Psalm 125:2 As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.
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