ISRAEL OFFICE
The next day, ZOA’s delegation took a tour
of Samaria. It included meetings with Samaria
Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, Ariel University
Vice-Chancellor Yigal Cohen-Orgad, and
Samaritan community members; a visit to the
Barkan industrial park where 3,000 Arab and 3,000
Israeli employees work closely together; and a
Peduel birds-eye view of vulnerable central Israel
that should be experienced by all who still believe
in the Oslo delusion.
The icing on our seven-layer cake was an invitation
from the Israel Council on Foreign Relations
to Jeff Daube and Mark Levenson to
join Paraguay’s president and foreign minister
the following week, at the King David reception
honoring their own embassy transfer to Jerusalem.
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
ZOA Israel continues to press for Jerusalem
sovereignty on the local, international, and
American fronts. At the Knesset, we are emphasizing
the security implications of illegal Arab
building in eastern Jerusalem and the need to
counteract with Jewish building. We are relentlessly
pursuing top leadership at UNESCO to permit a
tour of Jewish Mount of Olives provided by us
to its Ramallah delegation. In Washington, we are
seeking the removal of references to eastern Jerusalem
as “occupied Palestinian territory” in State
Department reports and communiques. And, on
behalf of Americans in Israel who were born in Jerusalem,
our Sense of Congress letter draft aims to
elicit a presidential executive order tying Jerusalem
with Israel on birth-related documents.
We are also working to disempower the US
Consulate on western Jerusalem’s Agron Street,
suggesting it be turned into the US Ambassador’s
residence instead of functioning, as it does now,
as the embassy to the Palestinians — evident in
its educational, cultural and sporting activities,
civil society initiatives, Fulbright and other grant
awardees, and collusions with left-wing NGOs.
As for the US embassy move, we have yet to
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diplomats from across the globe that they would
be well advised to follow America’s lead. Only one
other Jerusalem building would be able to top the
new embassy in historical importance, we tell them,
and when that building on the Temple Mount goes
up — God willing — real estate prices in this city
will go through the roof!
ZOA delegation members and former Cong. Michele Bachmann
treated to briefing by Dep. Min. Tzipi Hotovely at the Knesset
ZOA board member
Rubin Margules with MK
Sharren Haskel at the
Knesset
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