The decision by the US Democratic Party to declare occupied Jerusalem as the Israeli capital looks like election propaganda but one never knows how low officials will stoop to win votes. At their national convention, the Democrats restored language in their platform saying Jerusalem “is and will remain the capital of Israel.” A day earlier, the language had been removed from the platform, prompting Republicans to question President Obama's support for Israel. Obama reportedly intervened personally to have the sentence returned. His concern, it is suggested, was that the exclusion of an explicit reference to Jerusalem as Israel's capital would provide fodder for his Republican opponent Mitt Romney, who recently called for Jerusalem to be Israel's capital and in his convention address accused the Obama administration of throwing its Israeli ally “under a bus.” Romney and the Republicans have tried to capitalize on the tensions in relations between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and both are trying mightily to woo the Jewish vote in time for the presidential elections in November. But the Jewish vote is not as important as often portrayed. Israel is certainly important to many US Jews but not preeminent in determining their vote, as seen by a March opinion poll in which only six percent of American Jews said Israel is what most influenced their presidential vote. For Jewish voters, it is the economy, health care and so on that matter most, just like most other Americans. And the Democrats need not be overly worried about Jewish support. A Gallup poll at the end of July suggested that among registered voters Jews favored Obama over Romney by 68 percent to 25 percent. The real concern is that the language about Jerusalem used by the Democrats is at odds with US policy calling for the status of Jerusalem to be resolved through negotiations. Most major powers including the US do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and have their embassies in Tel Aviv. The Arab position calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The biggest obstacle is that Jerusalem of Al-Aqsa Mosque is so heavily laden with points of such historical, cultural and religious significance as to render the city the most sensitive and most broadly emotive aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflict. By contrast, the question of Palestinian-Israeli boundaries, which is not charged with such religious fervor, is a relative breeze to resolve. Giving up Arab Jerusalem, or any part of it, is not an option acceptable to the Palestinian people. But what has Jerusalem become? Jerusalem is surrounded on all sides and stranded, with little or no connection to other Palestinian areas. While insisting on postponing any decision on Jerusalem the Israelis tirelessly try to change the city's face, building settlements inside and around it, altering and Judaising it by the day. How to describe Jerusalem half a world away, at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, was vigorously disputed. The controversy gets hotter the closer you get.
