Did Obama call on Israel to vacate Temple Mount? Israeli politicians accuse president of 'misrepresenting history' in U.N. speech

By Aaron Klein
 

President Obama addressing the U.N. General Assembly yesterday

JERUSALEM – Did President Obama yesterday adopt U.N. and Palestinian phraseology while calling on Israel to give up the biblical West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem, including the Temple

Mount?
Some members of the Israeli government here reacted angrily to Obama's strongly worded demand – expressed during his speech to the U.N. General Assembly – for the creation of a "viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967."

The term "occupation" routinely is used by the Palestinians as well as some countries hostile to the Jewish state in reference to Israel's presence in the West Bank and Jerusalem. It is unusual for U.S. presidents to use the term, although Jimmy Carter once famously called Israel's presence in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem "illegal."

"Occupation that began in 1967" is a specific reference to the lands Israel retained after the Six Day War of that year, particularly the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

The Palestinians never maintained any official capacity in either territory, lands in which Jews have been present for thousands of years. The territories came under Jordanian rule from 1948 until Israel captured them in 1967 after Jordan's King Hussein ignored Israeli pleas for his country to stay out of the Six Day War. Most countries rejected Jordan's initial claim on the area, which it formally renounced in 1988.

Commenting on Obama's speech during a WND interview today, Tzipi Hotovely, a Knesset member for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, accused the U.S. president of "misrepresenting history."

"Obama is misrepresenting Mideast history," she said. "The Jewish people's right to live in Judea and Samaria is firstly rooted in the Bible and God's promise 2,000 years before 1967."

"I really believe the whole 16-year process since the Oslo Accords (in which Israel gave up land in exchange for promises of peace) has proven the settlements are not the obstacle for peace. The main obstacle is the Palestinians' continued rejection of Israel as a Jewish state even within the borders of 1967."

Danny Danon, another Likud Knesset member, told WND today, "Obama cannot force this on Israel. We do not have a partner in Israel which is a viable partner." ....