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Celebrate from page 22
her now-classic
ballad "Jerusalem
of Gold:' which
exudes reverence
for the city
An English ver-
sion of the ballad's
closing follows:
"Yerushalayim
Chagall's King David all of gold
Yerushalayim,
bronze and light
Within my heart I shall treasure
Your song and sight:'
In a IN interview, Korman stressed how
Jerusalem changed for the better after the
Six-Day War.
"Before 1967:' she said, "Jews or any
non-Muslims could not enter the Old
City; Jews could not see the Western
Wall."
A re-divided city, she added, would
"cause conflicts because the Arabs want
a 'Jew-free' area and because Jerusalem is
too small to divide:'
The city is about 50 square miles.
Now a dental hygenist, Korman and her
husband, Howard, a urologist, have four
boys. The oldest made aliyah last year
and is serving in the Givati Brigade of
the Israel Defense Forces. The next oldest
son will graduate in June from Akiva, a
Zionist Jewish day school in Southfield;
beginning next fall, he will study in Israel.
The Kormans make regular visits to
Israel to visit family and friends.
"Israel is very special to us:' says
Michal, a University of Michigan gradu-
ate. "It is the eternal homeland for the
Jews. There is so much anti-Semitism all
around the world today; Israel is the one
place that Jews can always feel safe. Israel
is a small country and I don't believe that
we should give any part of it away — ever.
"We have offered land for peace several
times throughout the 65 years that Israel
has been in existence, and it was turned
down over and over again:"
The Reality
Jerusalem is home to the Knesset,
the Israeli Supreme Court, the Israel
Museum, Hebrew University and
Hadassah Medical Center as well as
such venerated sites as the Old City, the
Western Wall and the Mount of Olives.
While Jews typically don't venture
east of the West Bank security marker,
much of Jerusalem is more a patchwork
of Jewish and Arab areas than segregated
districts. The Orthodox Union's Nathan
Diament captures this blending well:
"It is no more feasible to separate the
Palestinian and Jewish neighborhoods
of Jerusalem from one another than to
ethnically divide the neighborhoods of
Manhattan:'
To further their bid toward statehood,
Palestinians have tried in vain to paint
Israelis as interlopers without roots in the
24
May 2 • 2013
Holy Land.
Consider, for example, the absurdity
that the Western Wall is actually the west-
ern wall of the Al Aqsa Mosque. In a 2012
column, I explained how the Tanach and
the New Testament establish the Jewish
Temple's existence, as do the historical
accounts of famous authors Josephus,
Tacitus and Cassius Dio. Moreover, the
Western Wall's massive stones date from
late in the first century B.C.E. when
King Herod improved the Temple. That
upgrade was 600 years before Muhammad
was alive, let alone
rose toward heaven, as
Muslims believe, from
the site of the Dome of
the Rock.
Rejecting what the
Western Wall, Judaism's
holiest site, truly rep-
resents tarnishes the
King Herod
Palestinian bid to gain
some measure of auton-
omous traction in Jerusalem's eastern sec-
tor. To deny the Temple is as outrageous
as denying the Holocaust. No matter
where Jews are in the world, and whatever
their religious beliefs, when they pray,
the vast majority pray facing the Western
Wall and for Jerusalem's well being.
Stating The Case
It's perplexing why the U.S. Department
of State refuses to relocate the U.S.
Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as
mandated by the U.S. Congress in 1995.
The Jerusalem Embassy Act further holds
that "Jerusalem should remain an undi-
vided city in which the rights of every
ethnic and religious group are protected"
(which Israel clearly is in a position to
do) and "that Jerusalem should be recog-
nized as the capital of the State of Israel"
(which the State Department, bewilder-
ingly, won't do).
As his predecessors Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush chose to do, President
Obama continues to invoke six-month
waivers of the Act. The State Department
has consistently refused to recognize
Jerusalem as being in Israel; a pending
federal court case will consider whether
Israelis born in Jerusalem can list Israel
as "place of birth" on passports and birth
certificates or whether they must continue
to cite only "Jerusalem" — as if it weren't
part of Israel.
The 1947 U.N. Partition Plan pro-
posed two states in the British Mandate
of Palestine, one Jewish and one Arab.
Jerusalem was to be an international city
for 10 years, after which a referendum
held by residents would decide which
country to join. The Jews accepted the
plan; the Arabs rejected it and instead
waged war. Israel won the war, but lost the
Old City and Jerusalem's eastern sector —
until the Six-Day War.
The State Department subscribes to
"Israel is
a small
country
and I
don't
believe that we should
give any part of it
away — ever"
— Michal Galazan Korman
the principle that Jerusalem is a perma-
nent status issue resolvable only through
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. How to
create a climate that bestows an inter-
national aura on Jerusalem while secur-
ing Israeli control over it is the burning
question. Certainly, finding that answer
has nothing to do with acknowledging
Jerusalem as Israel's capital given that the
city's western sector, where the national
offices are located, is not in dispute.
We Jews have multiple religious, politi-
cal and ideological differences, but noth-
ing seems to prod us into fundamental
thought more than what may become
of Jerusalem. There's no denying that
whoever has ruled the City of Gold —
Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans,
Byzantines, Crusaders, Muslims, Ottomon
Turks or British — Jews have lived there
for millennia and reclaimed the majority
in the 1840s.
Worth Pondering
Next Wednesday on Yom Yerushalayim,
it's important to remember that solving
the riddle of Jerusalem doesn't mean hav-
ing to relinquish claim to the eastern sec-
tor. Uprooting the Jews there and hand-
ing the neighborhoods to the Palestinians
on the slight chance they have the will
and capacity to sustain a sovereign
state under the Abbas-led Palestinian
Authority would be capricious.
Says Michal Galazan Korman, "As we
saw when we gave away our towns in
Gaza, it did not bring peace. It brought
only more shelling, bombing and terror
— and the elevation of Hamas!"
The State Department, incidentally,
didn't hesitate branding Hamas a terrorist
organization.
A two-state solution to the Israeli-
Palestinian standoff is possible under the
right conditions. One of those conditions
is assuring Jerusalem's fate under Israel's
oversight.
Korman put it well: "As long as the
Jews control the city, it will definitely stay
democratic. And everyone can come and
go — in peace:'
❑
Difficult Issues
Await Any
Renewed Talks
S
ecretary of State John Kerry is
trying to bring Israel and the
Palestinian Authority together
in yet one more U.S.-brokered attempt to
return to the negotiating table. His tack
includes hoping to first break down bar-
riers of mistrust.
Ultimate sticking points will include
such permanent status issues as bor-
ders, security, refugees, Jerusalem and
water rights.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said he wouldn't consider
another settlement freeze, as demanded
by the Palestinian Authority, until P.A.
President Mahmoud
Abbas first acknowl-
edges Israel's right to
1) exist as a Jewish
state and 2) defend its
borders and citizens.
Putting Abbas in a
political vice is the fact
that he's head of Fatah,
Mahmoud
which has removed the
Abbas
goal of Israel's destruc-
tion from its charter,
but also chairman of the Palestine
Liberation Organization, which contin-
ues to call for destroying Israel, just as
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, does.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Media Watch
(PMW), an Israeli watchdog organiza-
tion, recently exposed that P.A. TV, a
Palestinian Authority outlet, broadcast
a children's show with a young girl
reciting a poem that referred to Jews as
Allah's enemies and descendants of pigs.
Three members of Congress' Israel
Allies Caucus — Douglas Lamborn,
R-Colo., Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Trent
Franks, R-Ariz. — responded by writ-
ing a public letter to Abbas. The letter
opened: "We are writing to express our
grave dismay and deep concern over the
recent broadcast of a children's program
on Palestinian Television, which includ-
ed rabid incitement against the State of
Israel and the Jewish people"
Hateful as it was, the poem arguably
represents free speech. The bigger ques-
tion is: "How can Israel negotiate with a
Palestinian leadership steeped in a cul-
ture of hate?"
The April 11 letter to Abbas asserted
that such "vitriol, aimed at the future
generations of Palestinians, not only
serves to foster hatred and violence, but
also undermines the very essence of
coexistence and peace, which you have
advocated."
❑
— Robert Sklar