Friday, August 27, 2010
Elder of ZiyonSo I went to Google Maps to see which direction the pictures had been taken from, and saw it showed a dotted line only a couple of hundred meters to east. I highlighted that line here:
Of course, that is the Green Line that represents the 1949 armistice lines between Israel and Jordan.
Just yesterday, Hamas leader Haniyeh said "No negotiator who would give up Jerusalem has a national mandate," and by that he means that terror and war will continue until every square centimeter of land to the east of that line is given to Arabs and every Jew uprooted from their homes that were built on the "illegal" side. (Actually, he didn't say "East Jerusalem" Western analysts know what he really means so we'll let that go.)
As we all know, a line that was never considered a border for a mere 19 years has more legal standing than a city that has been unified for 41 years, and everything done in that city for four decades must be rolled back to those wonderful days when a stroll to the places on the right side of this picture could get you killed. Those 19 years of a wall cutting through the Jerusalem, a tiny blip in its 3000 year history, is considered by the wise men of the international community to be the hallowed "status quo." According to these geniuses who fondly recall how peaceful things were from 1948-1967, the importance of those 19 years far outstrips the importance of the city of Jerusalem itself or the lives of its residents.
I don't know how accurate that line is, but just to play it safe I'll have to warn Junior Elder to make sure that when he takes a Shabbat walk to avoid going past the houses on Ramat HaGolan street that are bisected by that line. If he sees the residents of those two houses, as well as the ones on Tzalmona, Maavar HaMitle and other affected streets, he should give them sage advice to voluntarily destroy the eastern parts of their homes. After all, why antagonize the Arabs and the legal scholars who say that it belongs to a country that never existed?
