Soccer Dad

Who owns the property where the Consulate is located? Personally, I think you just can't be a nice guy, I would evict them. A consulate must have Israeli gov't. authorization, cancel the authorization for Jerusalem. Yes, this would creat ill-will, a diplomatic crisis. But, it would send quite a message to the US State Dept.
Let them move to Amman, Jordan. You know, in the real Palestinian state.

I wrote to the U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem on July 31st, 2009 and got the very same reply as above posted.

I then wrote to some e mail buddies for their information and added the following comments.

I wonder what this government organization is independent of.

Secondly, why is this government agency in Jerusalem catering to Palestinians who lay claim to Jerusalem, yet the US Embassy for Israel is in Tel Aviv?

The U.S. does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and claims it does not want to prejudge the outcome of peace negotiations.

One might conclude that this U.S. agency is an arm of government that does recognize Palestinian claims to Jerusalem.

It could have operated just as well in Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin, etc. or in Tel Aviv, if it really was not prejudging the outcome of negotiations.

What do you make of it?

Bill

What's abhorrent about the US State Department's policy of the Jerusalem consolate "only being there for the Arabs"...is that Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria are not allowed to use the consular services in the Tel Aviv US Embassy (even though its much closer to my home than Jerusalem).

The Embassy forces settlers to use the Jerusalem Consular office (not in the friendliest of neighborhoods either), and now openly admits that their primary customers are the Palestinians, and they don't even include US citizens from Judea and Samaria, which they force to use the Jerusalem office.

Bastards.

Its been that for decades - because supine Israeli governments are afraid of offending world opinion by refusing to insist countries have their embassies in Jerusalem and consulates elsewhere. Jews are the Rodney Dangerfield of the diplomatic world.

I sent a further letter this day to the US Consulate General Jerusalem with a copy to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and to Pres. Obama

August 4th, 2009

Dear Sirs:

Your letter of August 2nd, 2009 raises even more serious questions.

1. Your Consulate is an agency of the U.S. Government. Just how then do you claim to be independent and in that case, independent of what and of whom?

2. Is your consulate not answerable to the U.S. Government?

3. All of Jerusalem is the capital city of Israel. Israelis have the sole right to determine that and have. Nonetheless, the U.S. like other Western nations have steadfastly refused to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's captial.

Your government's motives are crystal clear and they have nothing to do with wanting to play the "honest broker" role in the region and nothing to do with the American stated position of not wanting to pre-judge the outcome of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and Arabs.

The Palestinians are laying claim to East Jerusalem to be the capital of a new Palestinian state. Ignore for the moment that the compelling evidence that the Palestinians do not want a new independent state unless it replaces all of Israel.

Your government may be correct that it is not pre-judging the outcome of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians/Arabs. What it does appear to be doing however, is making a very sustained and concerted effort to orchestrate and determine the outcome of those negotiations.

One of those things your government is doing is trying to create a reality whereby the Palestinians will have East Jerusalem for its own.

That you set up your agency in Jerusalem to aid Palestinians only is just further evidence of your government's real intentions.

If you truly were not seeking to orchestrate the outcome of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, yet wanted to make efforts to aid Palestinians, you could have chosen to set up your agency in Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem, Hebron, Jenin, etc.

It is very telling that your agency has set up your Palestinian aid office in Jerusalem while the U.S. Embassy is established in Tel Aviv.

So my question is why have you established a presence in Jerusalem to aid Palestinians and not in the towns and cities which have a majority, if not an exclusively Palestinian/Arab population?

Having asked my questions, I am providing you with my further thoughts.

The U.S. like other Western nations in seeking to advance their own interests in the Middle East, have rightly or wrongly believed or feared that they cannot in the least, risk offending any or all of the Middle Eastern nations that to this day, especially , the Saudis and OPEC nations for obvious reasons, that not only refuse to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but by reason of their intractable racist Jew and Israel hatred, refuse to recognize Israel's very right to exist.

Racist and Jew/Israel hatred is rampant throughout the Middle East. Hamas makes no secret of its racist Jew/Israel hatred.

The PA/Fatah under Abbas make little effort to mask that same racist Jew/israel hatred. Those little efforts appear sufficient however for your government and the other Western nations that America leads, to justify willfully blind public positions to portray Abbas as a moderate peace seeker when his positions, demands and views, especially stated in Arabic, say otherwise.

Why does your government continue to state that the vast majority of Palestinians, be they in Gaza or the West Bank only want an independent state to live in peace and security alongside Israel, when poll after poll conducted over the last decade reveals the exact opposite Palestinian mindset.

Abbas/PA/Fatah are as moderate as wolves in sheeps' clothing.

Your government has blamed Israel as the primary cause for peace negotiations not advancing and singled out the issue of Israeli settlements as the greatest factor that is an obstacle to peace negotiations advancing.

That view flies in the face of history and the facts of the current situations.

To make such an assessment of course serves your government's thinking and public agenda, but it is thinking that ignores the history of the region. It especially ignores the history of Arab/Palestinian and Israel relations over the past 60 years, the intractable racist Jew/Israel hatred that has marked those years and the intractable rejection of Israel's right to exist. Objectively, those are the greatest factors in keeping peace negotiations from moving forward, yet your government only rarely refers to those fundamentally central anti-peace factors and when it does, it resorts to euphemisms rather then direct talk.

I would much appreciate your considered response and not a response that reads like a form letter.

Yours very truly,

Bill Narvey

Bill, good questions. You will probably get a form letter. What is clear though is Western policy on Jerusalem has nothing to do with being an "honest broker." The consulates do nothing to bring Arabs and Jews together. And with their one sided bias in favor of the Arabs, how can Western governments help to make peace in the region? The answer is clear: they can't.

There is a slight problem with the ad below.
The Consulate is sui generis in its definition of operations.
It does not deal at all with Israel of Israelis and reports directly to Washington, not through the Embassy. It doesn't exactly deal with Israel.
As even Wikipedia has it: "The consulate is an independent mission that serves Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip."
As the Consulate replied to May's blog post, I found this over at Soccer Dad three days ago:

"Dear Sir,

Thank you for your feedback on the U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem's Website. Just to clarify, the Consulate General in Jerusalem is the principal representation to the Palestinian Authority. We also provide services to American citizens in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. The U.S. embassy to Israel is in Tel Aviv and is focused on the bilateral relationship with Israel"

So, all the below that refer to Israel or Israelis are simply off the map. That's too bad.
The better case was blatant discrimination against American citizens and others based on race/religion.
The main point that should have been made was that American citizens resident in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and who are Jewish will not benefit from the Consulate's additional programs beyond the consular services (visas, passports, birth registration, etc.) provided.

The question can be raised: even a "Palestine" is ever established, and given the current discrimination by the US Consulate against Jews, can it be expected that the new state will act properly towards its Jewish residents or is the Consulate's policies and actions right now encouraging Arab discrimination - aveira gorret aveira?

In the sections where it is written "Israel" or "Israeli" what should have been written, in my humble opinion, was "Jewish".

Yisrael Medad
=============================

DID YOU KNOW...
That the website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem
is Judenrein? That ALL of its content is solely about the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank? That NONE of its content is about Israel or
Israelis?

DID YOU KNOW...
That the website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem appears in English
and Arabic but NOT in Hebrew?

DID YOU KNOW...
That the website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem reports on programs
financed by the US government solely for Palestinians but NOT for
Israelis?

DID YOU KNOW...
That the website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem reports that the US
government has provided more than $530,000,000 to fund Palestinian
programs?

DID YOU KNOW...
That the website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem reports on the
availability of educational financial grants to candidates who must be
"a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, East Jerusalem or the Gaza
Strip," thereby EXCLUDING Israelis and Americans from participating?

DID YOU KNOW...
That the website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem reports that the US
government provided funding to establish Palestinian libraries in the
West Bank but NOT for Israel?

DID YOU KNOW...
That the website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem reports that the US
government provided funding for Palestinian summer camps in the West
Bank and Gaza but NOT for Israeli summer camps in Israel?

DID YOU KNOW...
That the website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem reports that the US
government provided funding for the preservation of "Palestinian
Cultural Heritage" in the West Bank but NOT to preserve Israel's
cultural heritage?

IS THIS CONSISTENT WITH
AMERICAN FAIRNESS AND DECENCY?

THE VOICE OF AMERICAN CITIZENS IN ISRAEL MUST BE HEARD!

This message sponsored by AIAC: American Israeli Action Coalition.
Register today: www.aiacoalition.org

AIAC is a non-partisan, non-political, issue-oriented NGO which was formed in Israel to represent the united voice of the more than
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