Capital games
IsraelNN.com reports on a rather one-sided request from a right-wing coalition:
Jewish Groups Challenge Obama: Show Support for United Jerusalem(IsraelNN.com) The Coalition for a United Jerusalem held a news conference in the capital Tuesday night to demand that US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama express unequivocal support for the unification of Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty.
The Coalition, which represents a group of Jewish organizations including the American Israeli Action Coalition, the Council of Young Israel Rabbis in Israel, Emunah Women, the Rabbinical Council of America in Israel, the Worldwide Young Israel Movement and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), called on Obama to reaffirm his positive views for the future of Jerusalem.
Will they be asking McCain for his “reaffirmation” as well? Here’s where he stands on the “unification” issue, according to Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s top foreign policy adviser:
“Sen. McCain has said that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, that it is undivided today, that we should move our embassy there,” Scheunemann said. “And if a democratic government of Israel chooses to accept an alteration of that status, he’s certainly not going to second-guess a democratic government of Israel.”
Which sounds like a perfectly sane position, and is basically indistinguishable from Obama’s:
I continue to say that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel. And I have said that before and I will say it again. And I also have said that it is important that we don’t simply slice the city in half, but I’ve also said that that’s a final status issue. That’s an issue that has to be dealt with with the parties involved, the Palestinians and the Israelis, and it is not the job of the United States to dictate the form in which that will take, but rather to support the efforts that are being made right now to resolve these very difficult issues that have a long history.
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 