Progressive Jewish groups call for avoiding unilateral actions in Jerusalem

As the Obama administration tries to maintain political momentum in the face of obstacles in particular to its health care reform proposals, a debate is simmering inside the organized Jewish American community over his Middle East policy. In particular, as previously reported, some organizations that prefer Obama take a softer line towards the Israeli government have sought to step up their efforts in Congress to lobby the administration to ease up on its settlement freeze demands in favor of pushing Arab governments to show Israel confidence-building measures. More progressive groups have in turn sought to give the Obama administration political space to continue pushing all sides for concessions in order to get to talks to advance a two state solution and a comprehensive peace agreement.  

In the latest installment, five progressive Jewish American groups — Americans for Peace Now, J Street, Ameinu, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, and Meretz USA — have issued a statement calling for avoiding unilateral actions in Jerusalem. The statement doesn’t say explicitly to whom it is directing its call – presumably the Israeli government which has recently approved plans to allow construction to go forward on a Jewish residential project in a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, a project opposed by the U.S. government.

People involved in drafting the joint statement said that it was also directed at the organized U.S. Jewish community, some of whose leaders have recently supported Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s protest that Israel should exercise its right to settle Jews anywhere in Jerusalem. While Netanyahu has had a hard time garnering Jewish American public support over the issue of West Bank settlements, the symbol of Jerusalem as a unified capital has stronger resonance.

From today’s statement:

We are Jewish American organizations who have a deep and abiding connection to Jerusalem and believe that Jerusalem is and always will be the capital of the state of Israel.

Along with 76 percent of Jewish Americans, we support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, believing it is an essential interest of Israel’s as well as of the United States.

Jerusalem is perhaps the most sensitive final status issue that will have to be resolved.  We believe that issues of borders and sovereignty related to Jerusalem should be determined through negotiations in the context of a regional, comprehensive resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Unilateral actions that inflame tensions, impair negotiations and make the ultimate resolution of issues surrounding Jerusalem more difficult, are unhelpful and should be avoided at this particularly sensitive moment.

We support the Obama administration’s effort to move quickly toward a comprehensive, regional resolution to the conflict, its call on all sides to take steps that move in the direction of peace, and its opposition to unilateral actions that make resolution more difficult.

Finally, we urge those who choose to enter the debate on Jerusalem do so carefully and with arguments based on facts and law – not ideology.  For instance, it is a matter of law and of fact that Arab residents of East Jerusalem do not have the right to purchase state-owned property in West Jerusalem – and the overwhelming majority of all land in Israel is state-owned.  Claims that somehow Jerusalem’s Arab residents currently have the same rights to live where they choose as Jewish residents are simply untrue, and provide an inaccurate picture of a city that remains divided based on ethnicity, religion and geography.