Time for Bush To Show Some Guts on Jerusalem

What happened if you gave a party and nobody came? Well its seems like thats what will be happening tomorrow as Israel begins its Yom Yerushalaym celebrations. Representatives from the EU as well as the US Ambassador have announced that they will not joining this year's festivities celebrating the 40th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem.

(JPOST)Anger over the decision by foreign governments to boycott events marking the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem showed no sign of subsiding Sunday evening, with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni voicing her own consternation about the issue.

"Even if the world hasn't yet recognized a united Jerusalem, the connection between Israel and Jerusalem is inseparable," the foreign minister said. "It is not dependent on the position of non-Jewish nations.

"It is our responsibility to continue to strengthen the connection between the Jewish people and the city," Livni continued. "And at the same time, to impress this fact on the international community."

Earlier Sunday, Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski blasted foreign governments for their decision.

"Anyone who doesn't recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel does not recognize the state of Israel," Lupolianski said in a statement.

He added that Israel needed to send out an unequivocal message to the world, and not capitulate on this issue.

"Israel is the only country in the world that allows other countries to boycott its capital and not [locate] their embassies in the city," he added.

The unusually harsh remarks from the haredi mayor comes after US and EU ambassadors declined to attend a VIP event at the Knesset marking the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem.

Sources close to US Ambassador Richard Jones said Sunday that Jones would not be participating in Monday's Jerusalem Day ceremony at the Knesset. It was not yet clear whether his decision to absent himself, which followed a similar decision by the EU, was politically motivated.

In an address in Jerusalem last year, former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said that no US president would move the US Embassy to Jerusalem except as part of a final peace agreement with the Palestinians, and, repeat preelection pledges notwithstanding, it was unrealistic to expect such a move.

He said the US Embassy could be moved to Jerusalem if the Palestinians declare a provisional capital in the east Jerusalem areas that Israel cedes.

Kadima MK Yoel Hasson criticized the EU's decision, announced earlier Sunday morning, to boycott the special ceremony marking 40 years since the capital's unification, laying primary responsibility for the move on Germany.

Germany's ambassador in Israel, Dr. Harald Kindermann, speaking for all EU countries, rejected Israel's invitation to participate in the event due to the conflict over east Jerusalem's position as part of Israel's capital.

Hasson told Israel Radio that Kindermann's rejection was "chutzpa," and added that if the ambassador could not honor the united capital of the Jewish nation, he could return to Berlin.

Hasson said that he had written a letter to the ambassador to express his feelings.

Earlier, Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Yaacov Edri told Army Radio he was surprised that Germany was the one urging other the countries not to participate.

He said that the EU countries had no obligation to come, but expressed hope that at least some of the countries would make an effort to send representatives to the Knesset ceremony.

At the same time congress is continuing to insist that the US move its embassy to the Israeli Capitol.

(Arutz sheva) Two American lawmakers have launched an effort to put a stop to the continuing deferral of the Congressional bill to move the embassy from Tel Aviv. Republican House of Representatives members Joe Wilson and Mike Pence recently introduced a resolution stating that Jerusalem "must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected as they have been by Israel during the past 40 years."

Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected as they have been by Israel during the past 40 years.

The new resolution "strongly urges" American President George W. Bush to stop exercising the waiver to delay the move of the embassy. It also calls on him and American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "repeatedly affirm publicly, as a matter of United States policy, that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel."

The congressmen also noted that the 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act directs that the birth of any U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem should be recorded as "Jerusalem, Israel" upon the request of the citizen or his or her guardian

That requirement has never been implemented, and the city is listed without its being designated that it is in Israel.

Time for the the President to show some guts with regards to Jerusalem. Enough with trying to make nicey nicey with the terrorists. Jerusalem with the will always be the capitol of the Israel and of the Jewish People, as it says in Psalm 137:

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand wither;
let my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to think of you,
if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory even at my happiest hour.