By Patrick Goodenough,CNS News
An already uneasy relationship between the U.S. and Israeli governments looks set to become significantly more chilly with the Obama administration’s decision to challenge Israel’s freedom of actions in its own capital.
With the exception of the dovish left wing,Israeli control over Jerusalem now and in the future enjoys support across the Israeli political spectrum;the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) wants the city – or at least the eastern portion – for its future capital.
The State Department late last week called in Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to warn Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government not to permit the building of a 20-apartment building on a piece of privately owned land in Jerusalem.
The incident dominated a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday,and even the statement issued by Netanyahu afterwards – usually a few staid lines on the meeting just completed – revealed the level of surprise about the issue that Washington had chosen to bring up.