‘Here in Israel’: In Jerusalem, Clinton Breaches U.S. Policy
By Patrick Goodenough
July 17, 2012
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, July 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Brendan Smialowski, Pool)
(CNSNews.com) – Contradicting a longstanding U.S. policy that irks many conservatives, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday identified Jerusalem’s location at least three times as being in Israel.
The apparent slip-ups came during Clinton’s first visit to the Israeli capital in two years, on the final day of a nine-country, 12-day trip.
Meeting with U.S. diplomatic staff and families at the U.S. consulate-general in Jerusalem, she said she was glad to see Consul General Daniel Rubinstein and his wife Julie, adding, “I got to work with Dan when he was in the White House, and it’s wonderful to see him in action here in Israel.”
Clinton used the same phrase when she greeted Defense Minister Ehud Barak at Jerusalem’s David Citadel hotel several hours later.
“Well, I am always pleased to have a chance to be here in Israel and to continue the conversations you and I have carried on over many years now, when we were both much younger,” she told Barak.
Later, opening a press conference at the same hotel shortly before flying home, Clinton declared herself “happy to be back in Israel.”
Those words – “here in Israel” and “back in Israel” – fly in the face of strict U.S. government policy not to state publicly that Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, is in fact located in Israel.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talks with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem, Israel on Monday, July 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Brendan Smialowski, Pool)
Like its Republican and Democratic predecessors, the Obama State Department does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the city, saying its future status remains to be determined in a negotiated peace settlement.
The U.S. policy applies even to western Jerusalem – parts of the city west of the 1949 armistice lines and so ostensibly not in dispute – as made clear by the administration’s stance in a legal case, brought on behalf of a young American born in Jerusalem, whose parents sought without success to have “Israel” given as place of birth on his passport.
Menachem Zivotofsky was born in a hospital in west Jerusalem, but State Department policy is that “U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem may not have ‘Israel’ listed in their passports as their place of birth.”
rest of the article: http://e2.ma/click/xn91c/p5xyxi/1y4csb
That report gives me great satisfaction. Thank you, Hiskid! And Thank you for your prayers for the Peace of Jerusalem.
I will be back in action this Thursday on the heroes thread. Thank You SO much for your help during this difficult time. :-)