In rare rebuke, J Street joins AIPAC in panning Abbas over Jerusalem speech

[aranthus]

12. Not really.

First, your claim that Jerusalem is a shrine is your opinion. I'm pretty sure that the Orthodox Jews I know don't share it. Given that you think that Hanukkah is a major holiday, you may not know as much about Jews and how we think as you believe that you do. Second, although the city per se has a smaller population, that of the metro area of Jerusalem is about 1.25 million. That's why it's important to understand that it's a city, not a shrine. Also, we have a difference of opinion os to how much is majority versus most, but that is a difference of opinion not fact. But we're not talking about Israel running the city, but about whether Jerusalem is Israel's capital. I don't see the conflict between the two. You understand that the Arab objection to Israel having Jerusalem as its capital is that they don't want Israel to be running Jerusalem at all. Their objection is not to Jerusalem being Israel's capital per se, so much as it is an objection to Israel at all. So if we set that aside, what is inconsistent in having Jerusalem as Israel's capital? Yes it's holy to many faiths, but what about that prevents the city from being the capital?