Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Jerusalem, where?

A Federal appeals court has determined that when the holder of a Canadian passport was born in the city of Jerusalem, that the omission of the country name 'Israel' is acceptable and not a violation of the charter rights of said holder.

The petitioner argued that recognizing Israel as the country of his birth is part of religious identity. The National Post says that the appeals court determined:
The decision upholds a 2006 court ruling that Canada's passport policy is neither discriminatory nor a violation of religious freedom, despite the fact that Israel is the sole exception to a practice of allowing passport applicants to list their birth country of choice when dealing with cities in disputed territories.

Not discriminatory when Israel is the lone exception? It isn't only a discriminatory policy, it's cowardly.

Disputed territory or not, even under 1948 rules, part of Jerusalem was part of Israel. Why does the Canadian government persist in this myth that Jerusalem in its totality is a city that belongs not to Israelis, but to no one or to everyone?

While I don't believe this young man's religious rights are being violated, reality is being evaded. Why make a document inaccurate in order to appease the sensibilities of Palestinians, who obviously cannot be appeased by greater concessions than even that?

My Israel includes Jerusalem.

canadianna

7 comments:

K. Shoshana said...

Interesting, that the government makes no distinction between what was Israeli Jerusalem and Jordanian Jerusalem. I am glad you pointed it out. I have been following this from the beginning and I didn't have the heart to blog about the conclusion but I am glad you were made of sterner stuff.

Anonymous said...

My Israel includes Jerusalem.

*Your* Israel? Well if it's yours, you vacuous cunt, why don't you move there?

Canadianna said...

anonymous -- It's good to see they finally released you although it seems you're not taking your meds.

What a witty jibe. It's kind of like you're a little kid and someone says 'I love chocolate ice cream' and you don't like chocolate ice cream so you say 'if you love it so much, why don't you marry it?'
You have precisely that kind of puerile wit except you have that even more infantile need to add vulgarity. I'm sure you can overcome that with help. Those 'mother-issues' I hear they can be hard to get over. Try to forgive her, whatever she did to you and then maybe you can deal with females with a little less hostility.

Dr.Dawg said...

Well, on a somewhat more salubrious plane, one could, with equal historical support, state "My Palestine includes Jerusalem." Oh, yes, and Gaza. And the West Bank.

The passport issue is a tempest in a teapot. Jerusalem is not wholly Israeli, never mind what the irredentists claim (along with "Samaria," "Judea" and Gaza).

BHCh said...

Dr Dawg:

You are confusing issues. Neither Gaza nor Judea have been annexed by Israel. Jerusalem has.

Irredentists advocate annexation from another state. As we know there is no Palestinian state and East Jerusalem has already been annexed by Israel from Jordan. Not unusual: Kaliningrad, Danzig, Kuril islands, Sudets many locations on the Indian-Pakistani border and most other places in the world have been annexed at one point or another.

This is the technical explanation... In the real world it's even simpler: the whole of Jerusalem has been a part of Israel for 40 years.

Anonymous said...

This is the technical explanation... In the real world it's even simpler: the whole of Jerusalem has been a part of Israel for 40 years.

So what? There is no reason to believe that a future Palestinian state will not have East Jerusalem as it's capital. Internationally, we all await 'land for peace' as offered by Israel in it's ongoing propaganda war. Until land is given, no recognition is required as it's all disputed territory. Any denial of this would be admitting that 'land for peace' is the lie we all knw it to be.

Anonymous said...

Who cares about this stuff from so far overseas anyway? Let them sort it out, I'm tired of this.