
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
In 2011, in response to an article in the Weekly Standard that noted that government press releases routinely referred to events in "Jerusalem, Israel" while the US was arguing that it had the right to say that a US citizen born in Jerusalem was not born in Israel, the White House scrubbed nearly all references to Jerusalem being in Israel on its website.
Anyone who thought that the Trump administration 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as being the capital of Israel would end this nonsense was optimistic.
Later, in 2016, the White House issued a press release for Obama attending Shimon Peres' memorial service on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem. The release which originally said "Israel" but was then "corrected" to remove reference to Israel, literally crossing it out:
During Secretary of State Blinken's visit to the Middle East now, three out of four State Department press releases refer only to "Jerusalem" with no country - contrary to standard practice - and only one mentions Israel.
Only when meeting embassy staff does it say Israel, perhaps because it is the US embassy in Israel and it would really be egregious to pretend that the US embassy isn't in the correct country.
This is no oversight - the same pattern is in Blinken's daily schedule, where the name of the country (or, in the case of the Palestinian Authority, the "West Bank") always follows the name of the city - except for Jerusalem, except for that one meeting with embassy staff:
Under the previous administration, events in Jerusalem routinely said "Israel."
It is a little too early to say - the State Department website still says (inaccurately) that the US was the first country to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital - that but it sure looks like the Biden administration is anxious to roll back all of Trump's accomplishments and go back to the absurd situation where the US considered all of Jerusalem - on both sides of the Green Line - to be a final status issue up for negotiations.

Related Posts:
Win a trip to Israel!Aish.com is offering a trip to Israel as well as an iPad. Click here to enter.Full disclosure: for those who enter by clicking that link, I get additional chances to win myself.… Read More
Swedish cartoonist attacked by Muslims (video)From Sweden's The Local:Artist Lars Vilks, who caused controversy by drawing cartoons that depicted the prophet Muhammad as a dog, has been attacked while giving a lecture at Uppsala University.Vilks, who has been the subje… Read More
Arab Bank to close last branch in GazaYNet reports that after Arab Bank closed two of its three Gaza branches last week, it is now planning to quit Gaza altogether:The largest bank in the Arab world, the Arab Bank, will shut down its three Gaza branches, the Calc… Read More
Israeli chocolate commercial from the 1960sThis fairly bizarre advertisement (in Hebrew but easy to figure out) can be seen along with some fascinating other videos at the Israel Archives YouTube channel.They have rare videos of Israel from the 1940s and on, including… Read More
Sexual harassment in Gaza marketsFiras Press reports that the crowded markets of Khan Younis have become a center for young men touching and groping Gaza women.The article states that the men will seek out the most crowded areas and purposefully jostle the w… Read More