Good for Netanyahu for taking such a strong stand. I’m sure it is music to the ears of most Israelis and Israel’s supporters. However, I’m also sure his comments aren’t sitting well with the Obama administration, who still refuses to call Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Ah well.
YNET NEWS – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “47 years ago Jerusalem was reunited and it will never be divided again,” he made the comments in a special Knesset session marking Jerusalem Day.
Following the Six Day War in 1967, Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem and led to what is called the reunification of Jerusalem, which expanded Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem’s Old City and the holy sites it gives home to, including the Western Wall and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Netanyahu, who spent significant parts of his childhood in the city, recalled childhood memory from the then divided Jerusalem, saying “We remember it fondly, but it was a capital under fire and siege, and without an exit, with narrow horizons. But one day that all changed. In 1967 the walls fell and we joined the stream of people and poured in the Western Wall.”
Netanyahu further praised the social diversity of the capital and stressed that it is the “mother of all towns in Israel, now and forever.”
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Elaborating on this position and its connection to his family and Israel, Netanyahu said that “Jerusalem is Yad Vashem (Holocaust Museum), Herzl’s grave (on Mount Herzl) and the Mount of Olives, where both my grandmother and grandfather are buried as well as (former prime minister) Menahem Begin and our fathers.
“Jerusalem is also Mount Zion and Mount Moria (Temple Mount), and Jerusalem is the Western Wall, Israel eternal. ”
Netanyahu vowed to keep Jerusalem united, saying “Jerusalem is our heart, and we preserve our heart, the heart of the nation, and we will never divide our heart. Never!”