Israeli ambassador: Bond with US unbreakable
In New York Times op-ed, Ambassador Oren says spat over east Jerusalem construction 'unfortunate,' but not low point in Israel–US ties. 'All Jewish neighborhoods in capital will remain part of Israel after any peace deal,' he says
In another effort to ease tensions over Jerusalem's announcement of a plan to build 1,600 additional apartments in east Jerusalem, Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren said, "Israel and America enjoy a deep and multi-layered friendship, but even the closest allies can sometimes disagree."
The announcement, made during US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the region, was harshly criticized by the Obama administration, which considers construction in east Jerusalem an obstruction to peace efforts.
In an op-ed published by the New York Times on Thursday, Oren said the discord was "unfortunate" but "not a historic low point in United States-Israel relations".
The ambassador wrote, "We should not, however, allow peace efforts, or the America-Israel alliance, to be compromised by Israel’s policy on Jerusalem. That policy is not (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s alone but was also that of former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Golda Meir — in fact of every Israeli government going back to the city’s reunification in 1967. Consistently, Israel has held that Jerusalem should remain its undivided capital and that both Jews and Arabs have the right to build anywhere in the city.
"This policy certainly applies to neighborhoods like Ramat Shlomo, which, though on land incorporated into Israel in 1967, are home to nearly half of the city’s Jewish population. Isolated from Arab neighborhoods and within a couple of miles of downtown Jerusalem, these Jewish neighborhoods will surely remain a part of Israel after any peace agreement with the Palestinians. Israelis across the political spectrum are opposed to restrictions on building in these neighborhoods, and even more opposed to the idea of uprooting hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens," Oren said in the article.
'Strengthening ties paramount national objective'
Addressing the recent violent Arab demonstrations in east Jerusalem, the ambassador said Israel expects the Palestinians to "stop such incitement and to cease sponsoring attacks against Israel’s legitimacy, like the deeply slanted Goldstone report on the Gaza war."
"Despite these Palestinian actions, Israel wants to begin indirect negotiations involving US intermediaries — which we hope will lead to a direct dialogue and a historic and permanent peace," the ambassador wrote.
Oren said that while Israel may disagree with the White House at certain stages of the peace process, "we must never allow such differences to obscure the purpose we share or to raise doubts about the unbreakable bonds between us.
"The people of Israel, in turn, view the strengthening of their relations with the United States as a paramount national objective. Because we share fundamental values — democracy, respect for individual rights and the rule of law — our friendship can sustain occasional disagreements, and remain unassailably solid," said the ambassador.
According to him, American-Israeli cooperation is vital to "meeting the direst challenge facing both countries and the entire world: denying nuclear weapons to Iran."
