And where were you born? Pt. II

In my previous blog post, I pointed out what I consider to be the rather biased attitude in US State Department regulations regarding American citizens born in Jerusalem (their place of birth is basically a stateless one as Israel will not be included) and in Judea and Samaria ("West Bank," a fictitious term, and not Judea & Samaria, is used).

Perusing the Web site of the Consulate-General of the United States in Jerusalem, the one that reports back directly to Washington, not to Tel Aviv, I was struck by two more examples of what seems like bureaucratic discrimination.

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Imagining Palestinian settlers

In a recent Jerusalem Post op-ed piece Imagine Palestinian settlers in Israel, the idea was suggested to Israelis and others who support a Jewish civilian presence in the areas of Judea and Samaria:

to imagine how you would feel if, instead of there being 300,000 Israelis who'd gone to live in the West Bank, there were 300,000 Palestinians from the West Bank who'd come to live in Israel. And imagine if they'd set themselves up over here the way Israelis have done over there."

Of course, did it not occur to the writer that many Israelis have actually not only imagined that but, especially over the past decade, truly feel that that is the situation with Israel's Arab minority. Why do you think Avigdor Lieberman's Israel Beiteinu party achieved 15 seats in the Knesset?  It is no imagination that forests were burned down, that religious fanatics are copying the Mufti of Mandate times and claiming Jews are trying to destroy Al-Aqsa, that illegal construction is in the thousands of units, that aid and assistance to terrorists have been extended and that Arab MKs openly identify with the goals of the most radical Muslim nationalists and have been particularly foul-mouthed in the Knesset.

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Green line language

A May 1 New York Times story included this information about Jerusalem:

The Palestinian population of East Jerusalem, which stood at about 66,000 in 1967, is now about 250,000. In addition, more than 195,000 Israelis live in Jewish developments - referred to as "neighborhoods" by the Israelis and as "settlements" by the United Nations - in East Jerusalem."

Now, I am not certain that the numbers above are exact but, for the moment, that is less a concern to me than the language used.

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No going back to 1967

With the return of George Mitchell to Israel, and his seeking long-term office space (jealous of Tony Blair, I would guess) as well as the purported statement of Rahm Immanuel which can be summed up as "you give us what we want, we give you, maybe, want you need," the media is hopping with commentary of the issue of the Jewish revenant communities in the areas of the Jewish national home (as fixed by international bodies between 1917-1922) not under Israeli political sovereignty.

One of them is a Washington-based policy analyst, Yousef Munayyer, affiliated with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. In the Philadelphia Inquirer he wrote, "inter alia", about Jewish towns and villages:

They are not only illegal under international law, but they also jeopardize Israel's long-term security, stability, and prospects for peace with its neighbors. Settlements and the security structures that surround them debilitate the livelihoods of Palestinians...It's time for a new approach that will make it clear to the Israeli government that there must be a permanent freeze on settlement construction and expansion. By conditioning assistance on compliance with a complete and permanent freeze on settlement construction, the United States can send a clear message to Israel."

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Explaining the media bias

The Green Line. That virtual definition between Jewish nationalism and Zionist messianism, between rational political behavior and extremist social disharmony, between good and bad.

Well, that's not really true but a four decades-old campaign has placed upon your eyes, my readers, green-tinted glasses and you believe, perhaps, that there are two realities, one of Israel in its post-1949/pre-1967 boundaries (never internationally recognized you'll recall) and another of Yesha, the Hebrew acronym for Judea, Samaria and, yes, Gaza.

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