Readers Write: Concessions unnecessary for move of U.S. embassy

The Island Now

on Weinstein’s letter (May 18) correctly notes that relocating the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem was the correct and courageous decision.  

However, it is disappointing that Mr. Weinstein then wrongly argues that the U.S. embassy should not have been moved “without securing some meaningful concessions” – such as “restraining some settlement building.”   

That’s double-speak for demanding that Jews should be uprooted and excluded from communities in the lawful, historic Jewish homeland of Judea/Samaria. 

 The U.S. embassy is located in the capital of every other nation with which the U.S. has diplomatic relations.  

No other nation has ever been asked to make “meaningful concessions” in return – or to restrict the rights of a particular religious group to build homes.  

 Restricting the right of Jews to build homes is antisemitic discrimination, pure and simple – and it does not bring peace any closer.  

In 2009-2010, at the behest of the Obama administration, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu froze settlement building for 10 months, and the Palestinian Authority still refused to negotiate.   

The issue is not “settlements” (Jewish communities): The reason there is no peace is because both the PA and Hamas want to entirely destroy and replace the Jewish State.

 Mr. Weinstein also wrongly opines that the Palestinian Authority could be peeled off from Hamas through “deft negotiations.”  

Peeling off the PA from Hamas will not resolve anything:  The PA is committed to destroying Israel – whether or not it is in a unity government with Hamas.  

For instance, in 2014, PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party bragged on Facebook that it has murdered more Jews than Hamas has.  

PA official maps, textbooks, emblems, etc. all show “Palestine” replacing all of Israel.   

The PA continues to pay $355 million per year to Jew-killers, and honors them with television specials and by naming schools, sports teams, summer camps, public squares and buildings after them.

 And we’ve had “deft negotiations” over and over.  

The PA repeatedly rejected generous offers of statehood and instead instituted intifadas in which Palestinian-Arab terrorists murdered and maimed thousands of Jews.

 Mr. Weinstein also wrongly opines that the current Israeli and U.S. administrations lack “vision.”  

If we wish to assure the continued survival of American’s key ally Israel, the most important vision we must have is to be clear-eyed about what we are really dealing with.

Elizabeth Berney, Esq.

Great Neck

Ms. Berney is the director of Special Projects and Acting Long Island-Queens director of the Zionist Organization of America. 

TAGGED: israel, U.S. embassy
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