(JNS.org) Recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, at first controversially omitted from the 2012 Democratic Party Platform, will return to the document after three attempted voice votes at the party’s convention in Charlotte, NC, on Wednesday.
On all three voice votes, a seemingly indistinguishable number of convention delegates shouted both “aye” and “no,” but convention chair Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, determined after the third attempt that the required two-thirds vote in favor of the measure was reached. Loud booing followed Villaraigosa’s announcement.
“To hear delegates on the floor of the Democratic convention strongly voice their opposition to recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, then boo when the chairman passes the resolution to adopt that language, is a shock,” Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), said in a statement.
“This unfortunate incident highlights the split among rank and file Democrats when it comes to the critical issue of Israel, something we’ve seen for some time,” Brooks added.
Now, the Democratic platform says: “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths.”
Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said Obama needs to go further than the platform change by stating himself “in unequivocal terms whether or not he believes Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.” Romney did so during a speech at the Western Wall this summer.
Before the change, the RJC on Wednesday had announced its placement of an advertisement on the removal of “strong pro-Israel language that was in the 2008 [Democratic] platform” in the Charlotte Observer as well as Jewish newspapers in the swing states of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.
The RJC ad highlighted how the Democrats removed that Jerusalem “is and will remain the capital of Israel,” that “The United States and the Quartet should continue to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism,” that the peace process “should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees” by allowing them to settle in a Palestinian state rather than Israel, and that Israel is America’s “strongest ally” in the Middle East.
Every Democratic platform from 1972 to 2008—expect for 1988—“affirmed Jerusalem as capital of Israel,” the RJC noted in a press release.
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), however, emphasized Wednesday that the Republican platform in 2008 said “We support Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel and moving the American embassy to that undivided capital of Israel,” but did not contain such language in 2012.
Instead, this year’s Republican platform says the following: “We support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with secure, defensible borders; and we envision two democratic states—Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine—living in peace and security.”
“No reference to an undivided capital, no reference to America’s embassy—gone,” NJDC President David A. Harris said in a statement. “Does this mean the Republican Party is suddenly anti-Israel? Of course not. But it does mean that GOP leaders pointing fingers [at Democrats] are wildly hypocritical—given this change and others.”
Following the Democrats’ change, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said it welcomed the “reinstatement to the Democratic platform of the language affirming Jerusalem as Israel’s capital” and praised the language of both parties’ platforms.
“Together, these party platforms reflect strong bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” AIPAC said of the Democratic and Republican documents.
The initial exclusion of Jerusalem rattled not just Republicans, but also legislators within the Democratic Party. “It was silly not to include it,” U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) told the Washington Free Beacon. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told the Jerusalem Post he “wouldn’t have taken [the Jerusalem language] out.”
Iron Dome developers donate prize money to trauma center
(JNS.org) Developers of the Iron Dome missile defense system, who on Monday were awarded the Israel Defense Prize for 2012, have donated the prize money to a trauma rehabilitation center in Israel’s south, Israel Hayom reported. The prize, worth thousands of shekels, was given to the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council’s Resilience Center, which provides therapy for trauma victims, including those suffering from the constant rockets fired into the south from the Gaza Strip.
“We owe this prize to residents of the south,” the head of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems’ Air-to-Air and Air Defense Directorate, Yossi Druker, said at Wednesday’s ceremony marking the donation.
An Iron Dome battery has been redeployed in the central Dan region after having been moved to the north of Israel for some months. An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said, “The Iron Dome system is undergoing an operational deployment process. From time to time the system is moved to different areas in the country.”
Netanyahu: Protecting energy facilities from Hezbollah attack is crucial
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to protect energy facilities from a potential attack by the terrorist group Hezbollah. Some of these facilities were already targeted during the Second Lebanon War, Globes reported.
Netanyahu said the IDF should map out a protection program after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to fire missiles at power stations during the 2006 war. In Haifa during the war, missiles nearly hit the city’s gas refineries and oil facilities, and killed several people after hitting a railroad.
Missiles also nearly hit large power stations in Hadera in 2006. A direct strike at such a site could knock out electricity for business and homes all over Israel.
Study: Rift growing between Israeli Arabs and West Bank Palestinians
(JNS.org) A study conducted by researchers at Ben-Gurion University has found that Israeli Arabs and West Bank Palestinians are growing apart socially and have increasingly different interpretations of historical narratives.
According to the Jerusalem Post, researchers found that 60 percent of Israeli Arabs surveyed said they would not want their daughter to marry someone from the West Bank, while 41 percent of West Bankers had the same attitude to their daughter marrying an Israeli Arabs. Meanwhile, 18 percent of Israeli Arabs said they wouldn’t want to live in the same neighborhood as Palestinians.
On the question of loyalty to the land, the researchers “asked [Israeli] Arabs of ’48 about their narrative, which is that they were loyal to their land when they didn’t desert it and stayed,” explained lead researcher Prof. Shifra Sagy.
“The ’67 people [West Bank Palestinians] look at the same issue, and they say the ’48 Arabs stayed on their land because they gave up and succumbed to the occupation without any resistance,” Sagy said.
“Both groups think of themselves as Palestinians, but narratives are different regarding very crucial issues,” she added. “What it reveals here is that over the past 60 years, this has really become two distinctly different groups.”
French judges investigating Arafat’s death seek exhumation
(JNS.org) Three French judges who are investigating the claim that Yasser Arafat was poisoned in 2004 are seeking approval to travel to the West Bank to exhume the former Palestinian leader’s body for further testing, Al-Jazeera reported.
An investigative report by Al-Jazeera and a Swiss institute found high levels of the radioactive element polonium-210, a rare and highly lethal radioactive substance, on Arafat’s clothing. Last month, French courts reopened an investigation into Arafat’s death following pressure from Arafat’s wife Suha based on the new claims.
Arafat died in Paris in 2004 at age 75 from a massive stroke, according to French doctors. While no autopsy was conducted following his death, many in the Arab world have claimed he was poisoned.
However, experts say the Palestinian Authority (PA) started rumors that Arafat was poisoned due to its pressure to deliver a political breakthrough amid the upheaval of the “Arab Spring.”
“This is the only weapon at [the PA’s] disposal,” Palestinian politics expert Hillel Frisch told the Times of Israel in July. “But they’re not going to get anywhere with it. The dead don’t mobilize the living.”
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Preceding provided by JNS.org and reprinted with permission