The Battle For Jerusalem...

Yesterday was Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, in Israel. It is celebrated with parades, visits to her holy places, and of course speeches. Bibi Netanyahu gave such a speech at the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva in Kiryat Moshe. He spoke boldly about the city and its history, its dearness and nearness to the Jewish heart, and its centrality to the Jewish Nation.

"The battle for Jerusalem is a battle for truth. With us is someone who was with me this evening and asked to come here with me, Professor Alan Dershowitz, who fights for our truth, our way of life, and is himself a yeshiva graduate.

"There can be no justice without truth and if there is a perversion of justice vis a vis our city and nation, it means the truth has been perverted, because the truth is that Jerusalem is our city and we never compromised on that, not after the destruction of the First Holy Temple, nor after the destruction of the Second. We were a majority in the city until the 9th century and we returned 2000 years later and witnessed the city's destruction once again.

"There is no other nation that feels this deeply about a city. Yet there is no other nation that has allowed such complete freedom of worship to other religions in this city. We will continue to build Jerusalem, a city that is full of life."

Beautiful and eloquent words, words we have come to expect from Bibi in moments like this. But what are words, and what is reality? The reality is that there are reports from the State Department that Bibi has reached an agreement with the Blight House on freezing construction in Ramat Shlomo until 2012. The PM's office of course denies this. It also denied the preliminary agreements regarding the Jewish construction freeze in Judea and Samaria. I take both statements with a grain of salt.

It is well known that the White House is bent on bringing down the Netanyahu government with its supposedly right wing coalition (Bibi is so left of center at this point that only a fool thinks this is a right wing government). Releasing such a statement regarding Ramat Shlomo, the neighborhood whose 1600 proposed new residences made Joe Biden clench his buttocks so tightly he nearly passed out, would certainly be a gambit to disturb Bibi's right wing coalition partners in the hopes that they would bring him down and a Livni/Barak government could take over. There's only one real problem with this. The Ramat Shlomo construction approval was not the end of the bureaucratic process. As far as I have heard the construction was not supposed to begin until at least 2012 so this whole freeze thing sounds like a lot of crap.

Then there are reports from housing officials that there is in fact a de facto freeze on permits for Jewish construction in the eastern half of Jerusalem. Only Arabs are getting permits, not Jews. This is deeply troubling and is, along with the Falacstinian Terrorkleptocracy's agreement to enter into "proximity talks" with Israel, via George Carp Face Mitchell, the best sign that Bibi is moving behind the scenes to negotiate the partition of Jerusalem. We're talking about a man who gave up Jewish authority over our second holiest city, Hevron. No betrayal is out of the realm of possibility with this guy.

As far as statements from the Prime Minister's Office are concerned, as I've said here before, Bibi's head is so large that he has multiple sides of his face to speak from. What seems obvious is that caving on Jerusalem is political suicide for Bibi. The country is solidly behind keeping the city united, and Bibi's stance against Marack has made him exceedingly popular. He has no reason to cave. But has he?

Bibi has already cemented his control of the Likud Central Committee with the vote taken to maintain lifetime positions, and freeze out the possibility of a Feiglin led coup within the party. What scares Bibi more than anything is not Igogettajob, or Marack...it's the Jews in the knit kippahs. Those guys make him crazy.

The only barometer that seems to matter is what is going to happen in Judea and Samaria in September. If the freeze is extended then it will lead to evacuation and the dividing of Jerusalem. There is no reason to extend the freeze other than that. So while I agree with and believe in the content of Bibi's message, I have no faith in the messenger. That I reserve for HaKadosh Borachu, so I continue to pray that Jerusalem will remain united, and in Jewish hands, never again given over to, or taken by our enemies again.