“Jerusalem is our heart … we will never divide our heart” was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s way to mark the commemoration of the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva on Tuesday evening.
Netanyahu reiterated, in his statement broadcast by the Hebrew TV Channel 7 on the occasion of Jerusalem Day, his firm rejection of any talks about the potential division of Occupied Jerusalem between Israelis and the Palestinian natives.
Israeli Minister of Construction and Housing Uri Ariel, who had laid on Tuesday the foundation stone for the so-called Jewel of Israel synagogue in the Old City, just 200 meters away from holy Al-Aqsa Mosque, said, “Jerusalem will not be divided again. Between the Jordan and the sea there will be only one state, and that is the State of Israel”.
In his statement at the same “celebration” to commemorate occupation of the remaining part of Jerusalem in 1967, Ariel vowed building work will keep going both in Occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank, announcing the inauguration of a new settlement in Eastern Jerusalem, between the Mount of Olives and Scopus Mount.
Such declarations coincide with Israeli war minister Moshe Ya’alon’s claims: “No security can ever be granted to Israelis without settlement expansion in the West Bank.”
Ya’alon acclaimed, during a tour through the so-called Benjamin settlements north of Ramallah, Israeli settlement expansion, maintaining that “time is in favor of Israel.”
Chairman of the illegal Benjamin settlements Board applauded Ya'alon’s visit to the area, expressing hope that mutual cooperation between the ministry and the Israeli settlement board would persist.
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