American Credibility at Stake In Showdown Over East Jerusalem Construction
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
If there is any comfort in Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren’s remark this week that the current U.S.-Israeli diplomatic crisis is the worst between the two countries “in 35 years,” it’s that no one had the slightest idea of what event 35 years ago Mr. Oren was talking about. It was, it turns out, a dispute over an Israeli military withdrawal from part of Sinai as part of the post-Yom Kippur War disengagement process. Hopefully, 35 years from now no one will remember this awful week in U.S.-Israeli relations, either.
But awful it has been, starting with the incredibly stupid blunder of an Israeli announcement of plans for a new housing project in the over-the-1967-lines Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo just as Vice President Biden was setting out to visit Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, and ending with the even stupider and undoubtedly more malicious American reaction. A few more weeks of this and even 35 years may not suffice to forget them.
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