Pat Dollard

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Bloomberg:

Renco Group Inc. founder Ira Rennert and bingo entrepreneur Irving Moskowitz are among U.S. donors who have given $25.4 million in five years to build Jewish homes in Arab parts of Jerusalem — the same areas where President Barack Obama is pressing Israel to stop such construction.

The American contributions, detailed in Internal Revenue Service records, have gone to organizations such as Ateret Cohanim. The group says it bought at least 45 properties, most in Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter, to advance its goal of settling a Jewish majority in the now predominantly Arab Old City.

The donations have also helped fund plans to build Jewish homes on the Shepherd Hotel site in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The U.S. State Department two weeks ago asked Israel to halt the project, which has been condemned as a threat to Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects by the French government, the European Union and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Plans to build homes for Jews in that part of the city are “the type of issue that should be subject to permanent-status negotiations” in the Middle East peace process, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters on July 20.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a July 19 cabinet meeting in response to the U.S. criticism that Israel wouldn’t tolerate any restrictions on Jews buying property in the city. “Our sovereignty in Jerusalem is indisputable,” Netanyahu, 59, said, according to a government transcript.

Palestinian Capital?

While West Bank settlements also attract American contributors, Jerusalem is the region’s main flashpoint, said Gershom Gorenberg, author of “The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements.” Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, a goal Gorenberg said the Jewish real-estate purchases are meant to block.

Donors “want to prevent any political compromise that might lead to a peace agreement,” Gorenberg said.

Ateret Cohanim leaders point to old municipal records and maps that show a Jewish majority in Jerusalem’s Old City between 1880 and 1936, before Jordan captured the area in 1948. Most of the properties they have bought once had Jewish owners, the group says.

“We are coming home, we are growing, we are building and it will continue,” said Yossi Baumol, former executive director of Ateret Cohanim. He now raises money for the West Bank settlement of Hebron.

Obama, 47, has picked the wrong battle, says Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

No Zoning Commissioner

“Obama should be president and broker final-status talks, he shouldn’t be the zoning commissioner,” Rubin said in an email yesterday. “If Obama is saying that since Jerusalem is disputed no construction should be permitted, he’s now going to face demands about ALL construction in the city, both Arab and Jewish.”

Every Jerusalem resident “is permitted to build anywhere he or she desires, as long as they meet the building codes of the city,” says Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. “They have the right to build and live there like anywhere in Jerusalem,” he said at a July 23 news conference during a visit to New York.

Another group, the Elad Association, has focused on implanting about 60 Jewish families among the 3,000 Palestinians who live in the Wadi Hilweh and Bustan neighborhoods of the village of Silwan, according to Ir Amim, an advocacy group for Palestinians in the city. The homes sit on a steep slope below the Old City.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that Iran would not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and reiterated Washington’s commitment to protect close ally Israel from any threat posed by Tehran.

“We are going to do everything we can to prevent you (Iran) from getting a nuclear weapon. Your pursuit is futile,” she told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program, adding that Iran did not have the right to develop a nuclear weapon.

Clinton annoyed ally Israel last week by saying the United States would cope with a nuclear Iran by arming its allies in the Gulf and extending a “defense umbrella” over the region.

A senior Israeli official said the United States should focus on preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon rather than talking as if this may be a fait accompli.

Asked whether she had been referring to a nuclear umbrella, Clinton told NBC: “We are not talking in specifics, because that would come later if at all. My view is you hope for the best, but plan for the worst,” said Clinton.

“Clearly, we have a long, durable relationship with Israel. We believe strongly that Israel’s security must be protected,” she added.

Major powers suspect Iran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran maintains its nuclear work is a civilian program to generate much-needed electrical power.

Several senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and national security advisor James Jones, will be in Israel this week, seeking to reassure the Jewish state amid concerns it could strike first against Iran if it believes there is no global resolve to curb Tehran’s nuclear plans.

“Our message (to Israel) is as it has been. The United States stands with you and the United States believes that Israel has a right to security. We believe, however, that this (diplomatic) approach we are taking, holds out the promise of realizing our common objective,” said Clinton.

The Obama administration fears an Israeli strike against Iran would further destabilize the region and have dramatic consequences.

DIPLOMATIC PUSH

Asked for her views on a preemptive Israeli strike against Iran, Clinton reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself and said it would not listen to other nations if it believed its survival were threatened.

But she stressed that pursuing intensive diplomacy with Iran was the best approach, a shift from the Bush administration which avoided engagement with Tehran and insisted that Tehran give up sensitive nuclear work first.

“We will continue to work with all of our allies, and most particularly Israel, to determine the best way forward to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state,” she said.

The Obama administration and several European allies such as France have threatened a new round of financial sanctions against Iran by the end of the year if it does not agree to give up uranium enrichment.

Clinton said major powers would make very clear to Iran what the costs of pursuing their nuclear ambitions would be.

So far, U.S. diplomatic outreach with Tehran has failed to produce any results and Clinton said this month that confusion following Iran’s disputed election made the country’s intentions even less clear.

Clinton said she had been “moved” by Iranian protesters’ actions following the June election.

“Clearly, we would hope better for the Iranian people, we would hope that there is more openness and that peaceful demonstrations are respected,” she said, criticizing the Iranian government’s quelling of dissent.