Dateline Jerusalem — Last year in a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the U.S. President, not Congress, and certainly not Israel, has the authority to designate the capital of Israel. They unilaterally ruled this despite the fact that Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for over 3,000 years, is the only capital recognized by the State of Israel, and is the seat of Israel’s government. They further set a precedent that Americans born in Israel’s capital of Jerusalem are not Israelis. They ruled that the words “Jerusalem, Israel” must be removed from the passports of Americans born in Jerusalem. Only the city “Jerusalem” could remain on the passports. Therefore, like American author Edward Everett Hale’s short story of 150 years ago, “The Man Without a Country,” all Americans born in Jerusalem, Israel , have no country of birth. Israel has become the only sovereign nation in the world not permitted to choose its own capital.
Now in another attempt to remove Israeli sovereignty, and erase the existence of the Jewish State of Israel altogether, the official U.S. Visa Service website for foreign citizens traveling to the United States and “the ONLY authorized website for the payment of visa fees,” has removed the existence of Israel entirely. Furthermore, it has removed Israel and its flag from the countries listed on the site and on its map. Nowhere on the site is the word “Israel” even mentioned. Three entities on the list have no flags next to their name. One is the country of Cypress. The other two are not countries but cities, and they are the only cities mentioned on the list. They are Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Again, as with passports, Jerusalem has no country associated with it. Tel Aviv has been erased from Israel as well. Of course, the Palestinians have claimed the cities of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Akko (Acre), as well as Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as theirs. Of course the Palestinians have been told that East Jerusalem with its Jewish holy sites can be their capital when they become a state. Just as it would be “politically incorrect” and offensive to Turkey to have Cypress’s flag on the U.S. Visa website, it seems that the U.S. does not want to offend the Palestinians by recognizing the existence of the State of Israel with its flag or name.
Official. Really?
This is the official site utilized by U.S .embassies and consulates around the world to help foreign citizens with information to acquire visas to travel to the United States. A foreign traveler must click on the flag of his country or the name of his country’s link to obtain general information on how to apply for a U.S. visa, pay the required visa application fee, and submit the visa application to a U.S. Consulate. When pressing Tel Aviv or Jerusalem on the U.S. Visa website, both are linked to the same site, “Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Official U.S. Dept. of State Visa Appointment Service”. Does this mean that only Israelis living in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv can acquire a visa since the country of Israel is not on the list? No, but is my question really absurd?
Why is it that the U.S. is bending over backwards to accommodate the sensitivities of the Palestinians and Iran at the expense of Israel by hiding Israel’s existence? Fifteen years ago, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel should be removed from the region. In 2005 then-Iranian President Ahmadinejad said Israel should be “wiped off the map.” It seems as though it has been wiped off the map, from several maps. It has been removed from various airline maps of airlines that even fly to Tel Aviv. Also, a National Public Radio (NPR) map represented the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Israel was not listed. However, there was a label for “Palestine.” HarperCollins publishing house also removed Israel from some of the maps in its atlases sold to English-speaking schools in the Middle East, yet the “West Bank” was clearly labeled. Even the world’s largest publisher of children’s books, Scholastic Inc., omitted Israel in one of their books in 2012.
One Excuse
Although some maps omitting Israel are allegedly geared for Arab customers in the Middle East, some are published throughout the world. I once intended to purchase a globe from a California store so that I could show my grandchildren where I reside, but much to my surprise and outrage, Israel did not exist on the globe. However, “Palestine” was labeled instead. I complained to the store manager but nothing was ever done because the next time I entered the store, the “Palestinian globe” was still on its shelves. In one of CNN’s reports with maps, Israel was replaced on the map with the name “Palestina”.
As media watchdog Honest Reporting’s managing editor stated when CNN removed Israel from its map, “At a time when the state’s very legitimacy is being called into question by vicious anti-Israel extremists, any message that Israel does not belong to the Middle East plays into this false narrative and feeds those like the Iranian ayatollahs who wish to see Israel erased from the map”.
The exclusion of Israel from maps and atlases de-legitimizes Israel. But the greatest disgrace of all is when a U.S. government sanctioned official website omits Israel not only from its map, but all mention of it from its website. It has essentially saying to the world that the State of Israel does not exist. No wonder the Palestinians continue to kill and maim innocent Israeli civilians. They have been led to believe that there is no State of Israel, and that men, women and children living throughout Israel are all “occupiers” or “settlers” of “Palestine.”
L’hitraot. Shachar