Redlining for thee but not for me?
In Wednesday's Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby nails the Obama administration for its hypocrisy about Jerusalem (Hat Tip: NY Nana). Why, then, does the administration want the development killed? Because Sheikh Jarrah is in a largely Arab section of Jerusalem, and the developers of the planned apartments are Jews. Think about that for a moment. Six months after Barack Obama became the first black man to move into the previously all-white residential facility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, he is fighting to prevent integration in Jerusalem.Jacoby goes on to compare the Obumbler's campaign promises and rhetoric about Jerusalem with the positions he is now advocating - read the whole thing. I neglect those points for this post, because they have been made before, and because I wish to focus on another aspect that has not received much focus until now.
It is impossible to imagine the opposite scenario: The administration would never demand that Israel prevent Arabs from moving into a Jewish neighborhood. And the Obama Justice Department would unleash seven kinds of hell on anyone who tried to impose racial, ethnic, or religious redlining in an American city. In the 21st century, segregation is unthinkable - except, it seems, when it comes to housing Jews in Jerusalem.
...
There was a time not so long ago when Jerusalem was anything but an open city. During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, the Jordanian Arab Legion invaded eastern Jerusalem, occupied the Old City, and expelled all its Jews - many from families that had lived in the city for centuries. “As they left,’’ the historian Sir Martin Gilbert later wrote, “they could see columns of smoke rising from the quarter behind them. The Hadassah welfare station had been set on fire and . . . the looting and burning of Jewish property was in full swing.’’
For the next 19 years, eastern Jerusalem was barred to Jews, brutally divided from the western part of the city with barbed-wire and military fortifications. Dozens of Jewish holy places, including synagogues hundreds of years old, were desecrated or destroyed. Jerusalem’s most sacred Jewish shrine, the Western Wall, became a slum. It wasn’t until 1967, after Jordan was routed in the Six-Day War, that Jerusalem was reunited under Israeli sovereignty and religious freedom restored to all. Israelis have vowed ever since that Jerusalem would never again be divided.
And not only Israelis. US policy, laid out in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, recognizes Jerusalem as “a united city administered by Israel’’ and formally declares that “Jerusalem must remain an undivided city.’’
If I were a racist, I would find a delicious irony in the notion that America's first black President has decided to support redlining Jews in Jerusalem. Can you imagine what Obama's reaction would be if he was told that no blacks may live Chicago's West Rogers Park or Skokie? Can you imagine his reaction if he were told that no blacks may live in along K Street in Washington DC or in Georgetown?
But since I'm not a racist, I can only call Obama's rank hypocrisy sickening.
Tell me, Mr. Constitutional Law Professor, why is redlining okay when practiced against Jews (in the capital of their own country yet!) but not when practiced against blacks? Is religion not a 'suspect classification'?
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:08 AM
3 Comments:
That's true... if the developers were Arabs, would the US have intervened? I think not. Let's stop beating around the bush and call it what it is: anti-Semitism. The developers need to be stopped because they are Jews. That's the plain and ugly truth behind the Obama Administration's attempt to impose a "Gentlemen's Agreement" upon Jerusalem. Sure, Gregory Peck in the movie portrayed a Jew barred from an exclusive club. Over 60 years later, things remain about the same... only this time it involves keeping Jews out of parts of Israel's capital because it offends the Arabs.
Hopenchange, any one?
Thank you for the hat tip, Carl.
I was particularly impressed with Mr. Jacoby's article. He said what should have been said, but seems to be studiously ignored by too many American Jewish liberals.
How dare The One even attempt to say that Jerusalem is not the capitol of Israel. How dare he?
And you are spot-on regarding his feeling that makes him assume he is 'entitled'.
It seems that Americans are waking up, albeit slowly, to his Jew-hate. After 20 years of belonging to the odious Rev. Wright's congregation? He does not seem to be a true Christian, and the idea that so many have that he actually is a muslim seems to be more and more true. And he has yet to join a church in the Washington, DC area, after 6 months in the White House.
He scares me more than any President in my lifetime..including Jimmy the Jew hater, who was so obvious about what he felt. And with Shrillary the Sec. of State? Gevalt!
Carl - Here's an item that will be of interest: 250 Rabbis Sign Letter to Obama: Hands off Jerusalem (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/132506)
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