The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg comments on this week’s events/debates/disputes over Jewish housing construction in eastern Jerusalem.

But Jeffrey’s post prompts the following thoughts and questions:

First, Jeffrey is surely aware that when Palestinians demand a capital in East Jerusalem they are not only asking for assorted neighborhoods east of the Green Line, they explicitly demand the Temple Mount, as well as other Jewish holy sites, which he says Israel ought not relinquish.

Moreover, while the trickiest issue to navigate is the Temple Mount, a redivision of Jerusalem would choke the city to death. If Jerusalem is holy, and its restoration is the culmination of the Zionist idea, then any move – including a redivision – that would kill the city is antithetical to Zionism. The Jewish “settlements” east of the Green Line but in metropolitan Jerusalem are the same effort as repopulating the city circa 1948 – they assure the city is living Zionism. (The only distinction now is that Jews living there don’t live in fear of a pogrom.)

Irrespective of some bad timing, Bibi Netanyahu is doing the right thing in continuing the building of Jerusalem.

Posted by Nathan J. Diament