6^th June 2014
The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ) has defended the Federal government’s statement that “the descrip­tion of East Jerusalem as Occupied East Jerusalem is a term freighted with pejor­at­ive implic­a­tions, which is neither appro­pri­ate nor useful.”
The Executive Director of the ECAJ, Peter Wertheim, said:

The Federal gov­ern­ment is simply being realistic. Jerusalem has not been a divided city since 1967 and it would be both wrong and imprac­tic­al to try to turn back the clock and force a re-division.
The fact that the United Nations routinely refers to parts of Jerusalem as “occupied” by Israel does not make such language sac­rosanct. On the contrary, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, and his pre­de­cessor, Kofi Annan, among many others, are on record as cri­ti­cising UN bodies for their obsessive anti-Israel bias.
Between 1948 and 1967, Jordan con­trolled and even purported to annex the West Bank and east Jerusalem. It had acquired these ter­rit­or­ies in a clear-cut war of aggres­sion, yet the ter­rit­or­ies were not des­ig­nated as “occupied”. It is hypo­crit­ic­al to use this language simply because Israel is in control, espe­cially as Israel’s control results from a war of self-defence in 1967.
The Aus­trali­an gov­ern­ment is correct in stating that the Israelis and Palestini­ans them­selves have agreed that the final status of Jerusalem is to be worked out through direct nego­ti­ations, and that the use of loaded language by others, which pre-judges the issue, serves no con­struct­ive purpose.

Contact:
Peter Wertheim AM | Executive Director
phone: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au