Is the UN about to abet the assault on Jerusalem?
The Palestinian hopes that President Obama would press Israel into making major concessions have, apparently, “evaporated.”
Thus, the Palestinians have turned to their longtime base of support – the United Nations – which they are now petitioning to not only take up the nefarious “Goldstone Report,” but also to censure Israel for its governance over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
We’ve already noted the Orwellian aspect of the Palestinians’ suggestion that the efforts to “Jewify” the city which has been the capital of the Jewish People for 3000 years.
And so, it is, we presume, likely that the United Nations will become an accomplice in this surreal discussion.
We don’t expect any better of the UN.
But in the wake of this escalation by the Palestinians, we would hope that those within the Jewish and pro-Israel community who have seemed so eager to decry Israel’s defense of the security and historic heritage of the Jewish People in Jerusalem will not continue to cast their lot with the Palestinians and the UN as they seek to rip the holy of holies from the heart of the Jewish nation.
It is one thing to be, in J Street’s terminology, “pro-Israel and pro-peace,” but it is another to believe that peace is to be paid for at any price.
Those who consistently say that they share the dream of a Jewish home in Israel have to defend that goal in some way, draw a line somewhere for their statement of allegiance to mean something.
If left up to the Palestinians and the UN, the city that, as Ambassador Michael Oren has written, “represents the raison d’etre of the Jewish state” would be taken from us, balkanized again by barbed wire.
This is not a view held only in Orthodox circles. A majority of Jews in the United States and Israel are clearly opposed to relinquishing Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem.
This is a defining issue and moment for what is the “pro-Israel” camp, and we would expect all to unite in this moment to protest, oppose and defeat the assault on Jerusalem.