Love of the Land: Hurting our friends, helping our enemies

Hurting our friends, helping our enemies

Fresnozionism.org
17 March '10

A friend called last night. He’d read my recent posts about the current unpleasantness between Israel and the US. He reminded me that he was very pro-Israel (he is) but wanted me to understand that the announcement of building in East Jerusalem was a misstep. “It was a big slap in the face, a huge insult. Netanyahu needs to control these guys.”

I told him that I thought the US was looking for an excuse for a spat with Israel and would have found one anyway. “OK,” he said, “but it was still a slap in the face.”

Not exactly. This morning in a fine example of l’esprit d’escalier, I came up with this analogy:

An acquaintance falls in love with my wife. One day he sees me kissing her. “How could you insult me like that?” he asks.

What is insulting here is the long-standing refusal of the US to recognize Israel’s rights in Jerusalem. That is the ongoing slap in the face, not Israel’s exercise of its rights. The relationship of Israel with Jerusalem is essential, and to borrow a phrase the Obama people like, it is an ‘unbreakable bond’. It is a consensus issue among almost all Israelis; a marriage is not a bad comparison.

What does it mean if Israel apologizes and accepts the US demands?

It means that Israel agrees that its rights to build in East Jerusalem — even in a Jewish neighborhood right next to the Green Line (it was part of “no man’s land” from 1948-67) — are limited, which implies that it is not fully sovereign there.

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Love of the Land: Hurting our friends, helping our enemies