Israeli fanatics go berserk over Obama Jerusalem snub. President Obama released a press release of his remarks made during the funeral of former Israeli prime minister and peace activist Shimon Peres in Jerusalem on Sept. 30. The White House later edited the release to edit the location of the funeral in recognition of Jerusalem’s disputed occupied status. Instead of having taken place in “Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, Israel”, it was later changed to “Mount Herzl, Jerusalem” which is the accurate way it should have been identified.
By Ray Hanania
Israeli fanatics are going berserk over the decision by President Barack Obama to correct a press release which incorrectly identified the occupied city of Jerusalem to be in “Israel.”
Shimon Peres, a former Israeli Prime Minister who was a signatory of the Oslo Peace Accords signed at the White House with President Bill Clinton, PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, died on September 28, 2016. Peres was buried on Friday Sept. 30.
The release with the president’s remarks was sent out by aides on official White House stationary right after the president made the comments at the funeral, which took place at Mount Herzl National Cemetery which is located just west of Israeli occupied West Jerusalem.
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Jerusalem has been a disputed city
since 1947 when Israel first occupied the Western
section of the city in violation of the UN Partition Plan
and later occupied the Eastern section of the city in 1967
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Jerusalem is divided into two sections created when the Jewish militia, the Haganah, forcibly occupied West Jerusalem in violent battles in 1947, forcing non-Jews to flee the city at gun-point during the conflict. Jerusalem was to be declared an international city under the terms of the UN Partition Plan that Israel rejected when it launched assaults on areas designated for the “Arab State” but that Israeli forces wanted as part of the creation of a Jewish State.
In later years, as a result of vicious anti-Arab propaganda published in the biased mainstream American news media, Israel claimed the Arabs attacked the new state of Israel and Israel was forced to defend itself. Of course, that was a lie. The Arab countries did not engage in direct conflict with Israel until after Israel declared its founding on May 14, 1948. But Israel’s Haganah and Jewish terrorist groups like the Stern Gang and the Irgun launched terrorist assaults on Arab population areas beginning in 1946, even before the UN Partition Vote was taken on November 29, 1947.
English: President Barack Obama welcomes Israeli President Shimon Peres in the Oval Office Tuesday, May 5, 2009. At right is Vice President Joe Biden. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza. Français : President Barack Obama accueille le président israélien Shimon Peres dans le bureau ovale mardi 5 mai 2009. A droite, le vice-président Joe Biden. Photo officielle de la Maison Blanche par Pete Souza. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)The status of Jerusalem remained undecided even after Israel and neighboring states signed armistice agreements. In 1967, Israel attacked the Arab countries and occupied the remaining portions of East Jerusalem. The Israelis have engaged in a systematic cleansing of non-Jews beginning in 1948 in West Jerusalem and immediately after taking East Jerusalem in June 1967. The entire Moroccan Quarter of East Jerusalem was destroyed by Israel and some 1,000 Muslim Palestinians were forced into exile when Israel decided to expand the Wailing Wall to create the current Kotel or Wailing Wall Plaza.
Obama’s efforts were intended to correctly recognize the disputed status of Jerusalem while showing respect to Peres, who despite his support of the Two-State solution has been vilified by some Palestinians for the massacre of 106 Lebanese civilians by Israeli forces at Qana, Lebanon in April 1996 during a battle between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the extremist terrorist organization.
Peres was prime minister at the time, having succeeded Yitzhak Rabin who was murdered by a disciple of extremist rightwing fanatic Benjamin Netanyahu on November 4, 1995. But Palestinian extremists have been viciously attacking anyone who supports compromise with Israel and who still supports the premise of the Two-State Solution. Although Israel continues to make the Two-State Solution that harder to achieve through its expansion of illegal Jewish-only settlements in the Occupied West Bank, many believe it is still a possibility.
Pro-Israel fanatics have attacked Obama in the past for being pro-Palestinian. But in truth, despite his rhetoric of support for Palestine rights and Palestinian statehood, Obama has been unable to help Palestinians achieve freedom from Israel’s brutal and oppression occupation. Instead, Obama has been able to give Israel a record commitment of military funding of $38 billion over a 10 year period beginning immediately.
Many Palestinians have praised Peres for supporting the peace process, which was destroyed by Netanyahu’s extremist followers and the assassination of Rabin. But the peace process was also destroyed by the extremist violence and series of vicious suicide bombings by Palestinian terrorists in Hamas and Hezbollah who have recruited children and teenagers to blow themselves up to intentionally kill Jewish civilians.
Here is Obama’s official statement that was issued by the White House on Sept. 30, 2016, with the location later corrected, after Obama made his remarks at the funeral:
Statement by the President Barack Obama on the death of former Israeli President Shimon Peres
There are few people who we share this world with who change the course of human history, not just through their role in human events, but because they expand our moral imagination and force us to expect more of ourselves. My friend Shimon was one of those people.
Shimon Peres once said that, “I learned that public service is a privilege that must be based on moral foundations.” Tonight, Michelle and I join people across Israel, the United States and around the world in honoring the extraordinary life of our dear friend Shimon Peres—a Founding Father of the State of Israel and a statesman whose commitment to Israel’s security and pursuit of peace was rooted in his own unshakeable moral foundation and unflagging optimism.
I will always be grateful that I was able to call Shimon my friend. I first visited him in Jerusalem when I was a senator, and when I asked for his advice, he told me that while people often say that the future belongs to the young, it’s the present that really belongs to the young. “Leave the future to me,” he said, “I have time.” And he was right. Whether it was during our conversations in the Oval Office, walking together through Yad Vashem, or when I presented him with America’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, Shimon always looked to the future. He was guided by a vision of the human dignity and progress that he knew people of goodwill could advance together. He brought young people from around the world together because he knew they could carry us closer to our ideals of justice and equality.
Shimon was the essence of Israel itself—the courage of Israel’s fight for independence, the optimism he shared with his wife Sonya as they helped make the desert bloom, and the perseverance that led him to serve his nation in virtually every position in government across the entire life of the State of Israel. As Americans, we are in his debt because, having worked with every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy, no one did more over so many years as Shimon Peres to build the alliance between our two countries—an unbreakable alliance that today is closer and stronger than it has ever been.
Perhaps because he had seen Israel surmount overwhelming odds, Shimon never gave up on the possibility of peace between Israelis, Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors—not even after the heartbreak of the night in Tel Aviv that took Yitzhak Rabin. “Dear friends,” he told us during my visit to Israel three years ago, “after everything I have seen in my life, I earned the right to believe that peace is attainable.” Tonight, I can think of no greater tribute to his life than to renew our commitment to the peace that we know is possible. Our thoughts are with his children Zvia, Yoni and Chemi, their families and all who loved and admired Shimon Peres, of blessed memory.
A light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever. Shimon Peres was a soldier for Israel, for the Jewish people, for justice, for peace, and for the belief that we can be true to our best selves – to the very end of our time on Earth, and in the legacy that we leave to others. For the gift of his friendship and the example of his leadership, todah rabah, Shimon.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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